Increasing number of cases

[AutumnAlmanack]

Could anyone please explain to me why it is that the UK is recording such a high number of daily cases, and rising, whereas the rest of Europe and elsewhere seem to be showing a steady decline in numbers? It really baffles me!

Political choice - I doubt the 'we are all going to get it anyway - let's make it ASAP' mentality runs rife in many other countries. Plenty of scientists said vaccines were not enough on their own. Things like ventilation in schools were addressed etc. Masks worn inside shopping centres, public transport etc. Less mass events. Plus we let delta seed a lot before vax rollout. Disinformation groups influencing government. A rhetoric that kids only get it mildly, despite the studies linked to organ damage. Not vaccinating teens sooner, slow booster roll out.

@Bunnyvenom

I think everywhere gets it in the end. I’ve just looked at the bbc map and all the places that were sky high for cases in months previously (Leicester, Bolton, Burnley etc) and now orange surrounded by red. Same thing with big cities like Birmingham, London, Liverpool- all orange surrounded by red. Hoping this means natural immunity at play. Unless Europe intends on keeping children in masks for the entirety of their education, they’re going to have to let covid into schools sooner or later.

Yes London is yellow it’s interesting

Not everywhere is decreasing in the city but my area is which feels a bit at odds , I hope it continues.

@beentoldcomputersaysno

We also have higher hospitalisations and deaths - irrespective of testing.

^this

So people can bleat all they like about over testing. Something is going wrong.

We’ve deviated somewhat from the rest of europe due to differing vaccine rollouts/restrictions lifting and I suspect it’s still to early to say one way or another whether there’s a definitive thing we could have done/be doing differently.

On the face of it I suspect that we’re outliers in largely calling time on attempts to suppress (low level strategies like isolations of households, masks etc). Personally I don’t agree with it but I’m not sure if anything will be really clear till next spring now. Closer to home we’re still running the risk of having to implement more dramatic strategies if the healthcare provision starts creaking (more than it is) because we’ve got a very large genie to get back in the bottle if that transpires.

@Cornettoninja

We’ve deviated somewhat from the rest of europe due to differing vaccine rollouts/restrictions lifting and I suspect it’s still to early to say one way or another whether there’s a definitive thing we could have done/be doing differently.

On the face of it I suspect that we’re outliers in largely calling time on attempts to suppress (low level strategies like isolations of households, masks etc). Personally I don’t agree with it but I’m not sure if anything will be really clear till next spring now. Closer to home we’re still running the risk of having to implement more dramatic strategies if the healthcare provision starts creaking (more than it is) because we’ve got a very large genie to get back in the bottle if that transpires.

Some of the noises being made is that we’ve overly relied on AZ which is less effective and is wearing off after six months. Going early for vaccines may be our downfall.

There’s also a problem about vaccine availability- I think it’s ridiculous how slow the boosters and teen vaccines are happening. My son won’t get his until mid November by which times there’s a strong risk he would have actual covid as it’s going through his year now. (And I’ve a feeling you can’t have the jab within a certain timeframe of having covid?)

Going early for vaccines may be our downfall

I can’t see that going early on vaccines is a downfall?

It was imperative back then to rollout quickly for the reason of stopping hospitalisation/ death.

Boosters I don’t know about - some seem to be saying you can just book online etc now

@Luckytattie

Have you looked at how many are being tested? I think the UK are doing double or more than what other countries are!

absolutely this - stop testing for a cold (even if just to be on the safe side) Do you all want restrictions to last forever ? Some of us want 'freedom'

We have masks indoors and busy areas such as markets, covid passports, no mass gatherings still. Kids wear masks in school, windows open, need to stay in same seat, hand sanitizer when going into classrooms etc. Kids close to a positive case still have to isolate. About 70% of 12-17 yos are already fully vaccinated. Testing when entering the country from UK/high risk countries.

@Caramellatteplease

Oh yes and they have decided instead of vaccinating teens to let it rip through schools for natural immunity. Way cheaper.

But we are vaccinating the teens who get parental permission. In fact, this is our last week of schools in my area so they will all have had a visit by Friday. As I said on a previous thread, I’ve been in two schools for Covid, one had about 30% uptake and the other just over 50%. If you find those numbers low it’s not the vaccination team’s fault.

Well if it is a cold it will be negative so it won't matter. People not testing is more of an issue as they are unwittingly spreading it further .
I had a really bad cough so I tested. It was negative. How dies that effect figures
Had I not tested and actually I was positive I could have infected loads.

Our school have now been told to inform parents of what classes have covid in them.

@beentoldcomputersaysno

We also have higher hospitalisations and deaths - irrespective of testing.

Nope. These numbers are also a function of testing.

The most objective comparator is excess deaths.

@MissAmbrosia

We have masks indoors and busy areas such as markets, covid passports, no mass gatherings still. Kids wear masks in school, windows open, need to stay in same seat, hand sanitizer when going into classrooms etc. Kids close to a positive case still have to isolate. About 70% of 12-17 yos are already fully vaccinated. Testing when entering the country from UK/high risk countries.

Where are you, please?

Because we are not wearing masks, working from hone or social distancing.

We’ve accepted it’s endemic.

UK are doing 2-3 times as many daily tests as the rest of Europe, therefore number of cases declared in the UK is 2-3 times as many as most other European countries.

@theemperorhasnoclothes

Kids wear masks in all other European countries in schools. And they vaccinated their kids too, while we prevaricated and the JCVI decided to play with the lives of kids rather than get out of their ivory tower and let parents and kids have the choice. 10 kids died as a result in September.

Adults still wear masks in most indoor settings.

We've abandoned masks. We're currently providing really good evidence of what happens when everyone pretends covid isn't real. Hospitals close to breaking point again too.

Have you a link for the 10 deaths in September? Seems rather high considering that up until July there were only 25 since the start of the pandemic…

Even if you look at % of tests resulting positive, rather than the raw number of tests carried out, the UK is out on a limb.

7% positivity reported on one of the data threads last Friday or Saturday cf 0.6% positivity in Italy (just under half a million tests carried out on that particular day in Italy, which was iirc 300,000 fewer than the UK, but still not "enough" of a gap to explain the % unless you accept it's vaccines and restrictions.) Also wrt to fewer tests because people won't pay, if you aren't vaccinated, you don't have a choice whether to test or not, at least to enter public spaces, etc. Tests are €8 for children and €15 for adults Italy also has 81% of all over 12s double vaccinated.

Time will tell whether (as other threads have said) keeping restrictions for longer will ultimately result in an explosion of cases when they're lifted.

It's a pretty big gamble going (presumably) for herd immunity when nobody yet truly knows if/how long immunity after Covid lasts. Factor in the possible arrival of other variants (though scientists seem to be cautiously optimistic about those at the moment)

Yes, we're all going to have to learn to live with it. I don't believe we're all going to get it though, as other threads say.

The positive tests will all be PCRs though - not regular lateral flows, so the fact that we're doing more tests surely just means we have more people with symptoms and therefore more people with Covid?

@IfIHadAHeart

The increase in child deaths from covid isn't being publicised very well (the BBC has to okay everything it puts out, via the D of E, for example).

However, the figures are being published, broken down by age, and I understand that recently there were 10 child deaths related to covid over about 4 weeks. If you are sceptical, you can look up the government figures and tot them up yourself.

@Bramshott

The positive tests will all be PCRs though - not regular lateral flows, so the fact that we're doing more tests surely just means we have more people with symptoms and therefore more people with Covid?

I get v confused with testing data. Are LFTs not registered at all? So all the positive cases in the data are from PCRs? (There's no such thing as self-administered tests here)

@Caramellatteplease

Other countries haven't abandoned masks and have adopted Covid passports.

We opted for "freedom"

It's not the masks. We have to wear them in Scotland and our cases rocketed a few weeks back.

@KingsleyShacklebolt

We have restrictions in Scotland. And masks. And social distancing. And we're still being asked to work from home. And vaccine passports.

And still the numbers are high.

Exactly

@Bizawit

We’ve always been at different stages on the “curve”. Sometimes they are going up while we go down. Sometimes we are going up while they go down.

It’s true that UK has had a much higher sustained number of cases than the rest of Europe since the summer, but we also have a much much wider testing programme. We’re currently testing several times as many people per day, and picking up a lot of asymptomatic or very mild cases, particularly in children.

Your balanced and logical reply will be wasted here I suspect

It's also true that we are wearing masks less than some other European countries and that our government was going for a populist line about "irreversible" freedom from restrictions over the summer, and didn't vaccinate younger teens, unlike much of Europe.