Are cases really dropping?

[PrpleRain]

I understand that once you test positive on lateral flow you need to start self isolation and no pcr is required. You should report the result to nhs but how many people will bother doing that? I feel like everyone around me had covid but then I read that the cases are dropping and it’s just hard to believe..

Oh and 1.4 million tests reported yesterday is no “there are no tests!” People definition of none is obviously very different to mine!! In fact test are actually up on a seven day average (although that will be because of the bsck to school testing which will have been reported whether positive or negative as done in school)

Whatever way you look at it, things appear to be much better than they were this time last year.

We have never had the full picture throughout the whole of the pandemic.

The figures we have are the best we are probably ever going to get.

LFT are only though asymptomatic infection. I guess the feeling is that if you have no symptoms, no positive LFT before (so arent one of those who gets them) the chances of the LFT being a false positive are small and therefore using up a PCR test to confirm is unnecessary.

Symptomatic infections should always be a PCR not LFT

Lateral flow tests are taken by people who do not have COVID-19 symptoms. Anyone who develops 1 of the 3 main COVID-19 symptoms should stay at home and self-isolate and take a PCR test. They must self-isolate if they get a positive test result, even if they have had a recent negative lateral flow test – these rules have not changed.

A huge number of people ARE symptomatic - they just don't have the 'right' symptoms to access a PCR so rely on the LFTs for confirmation. Without LFTs many will not know they have covid (or not be able to prove it). Even if they end up in hospital it will likely be too late to test positive on a PCR and therefore there admission/death will not show up in the stats as being covid. It's all about to mysteriously dissappear!

Even if they end up in hospital it will likely be too late to test positive on a PCR and therefore there admission/death will not show up in the stats as being covid.

What?

If a patient is so ill with Covid that they need hospitalisation, why on earth wouldn't they test positive???

4.3 million positive in the UK last week according to the ONS.

The fall in the number of cases is greater than the fall in the number of tests, so it's quite possible thus is a real reduction - now we need to see if it carries on

But hospital admissions (the key indicator) are up on the 7 day rolling average, though might be starting to plateau. Deaths up, and rising sharply (and will probably continue to do so for another few days, following the curve of admissions)

London, where omicron hit first, is starting to show a drop in hospital admissions and that is encouraging

@Blubells

Even if they end up in hospital it will likely be too late to test positive on a PCR and therefore there admission/death will not show up in the stats as being covid.

What?

If a patient is so ill with Covid that they need hospitalisation, why on earth wouldn't they test positive???

PCRs only pick-up covid for a certain period of time don't they? It tells you this on the gov website - test in the first 5 days. It can be weeks before people end up in hospital suffering the after effects of covid.

@containsnuts pcrs can be positive for ages afterwards. That’s why people are told not to test again for 90 days unless they have symptoms so they essentially have to.

They’re more likely to pick up infection when your viral loads are highest at the start but that doesn’t mean they’ll be negative in someone hospitalised with an active covid infection.

In my London borough the drop is sharp

Nearly halfway back down the peak

[quote PurpleDaisies]@containsnuts pcrs can be positive for ages afterwards. That’s why people are told not to test again for 90 days unless they have symptoms so they essentially have to.

They’re more likely to pick up infection when your viral loads are highest at the start but that doesn’t mean they’ll be negative in someone hospitalised with an active covid infection.[/quote]
Thanks for explaining, I must have misunderstood .

There's still the issue of the many people with non classic symptoms who currently don't have access to LFTs and don't qualify for a PCR. It's a shame to lose all that data.

PCRs only pick-up covid for a certain period of time don't they? It tells you this on the gov website - test in the first 5 days. It can be weeks before people end up in hospital suffering the after effects of covid

If by after effects, you mean long covid, then yes it can be very protracted

For the acute disease, most people who require hospitalisation will do so in about a week (pre-omicron) though of course in biology there will,always be outliers.

It's not true that PCR cannot be used after 5 days. In a typical case, the person is likely to test positive for about 3 weeks.

Christmas is over so people have stopped needing to isolate

I think they're dropping in the SE. We had a straw poll on our village what's app today and very few people are currently infected, whereas over Christmas and new year, we consistantly had 2-3 new families every day.

Although PCR can pick up after infectious period its not definate they will. If you book a test it wont allow you to test if so long after first symptom date. This is also true if you have an inconclusive test. So it is possible to suffer at home and by time so ill you are hospitalised the test is showing negative. Although, on death certificate it will still likely be recorded as covid as they will know by other means in most cases but wont count in daily death figures. But seeing as every person i personally know who has dies of covid has died after 28 days they dont count either

I really hope so because the deaths are going up so we need that to be a 2-3 week rise only (following the trend of the cases but 2-3 weeks behind) or we're going to end up in trouble again.

I had Covid over Christmas (and anecdotally a large number of people I'm aquainted with did within 10 days). I ended up in another county having a long wait in the street for a PCR.

DS2 had a brief faint positive and a couple of days of tiredness and a very brief phase of a temperature while I was isolating. As we had no plans to leave the house anyway he just isolated at home. There was no practical benefit of going through significant unconvience to test. While that may be one case of missing data, assuming he was positive (just as my local area approached its peak) that also means that he's now far less likely to have a repeat infection in the next couple of months as this wave subsides.

The geographical pattern of the peak of the wave moving from SE, northwards through the country indicates that the general pattern is of peak cases rather than of access to testing affecting numbers as the trend repeats the same pattern and also replicates previous waves.

If cases really do continue to plummet, does that mean another wave in a few months? Not everybody has had natural infection yet and boosters will be waning.

The only way to know if they are truly dropping is to only consider the ONS data which tests a group of people so isn't about testing on symptoms and test availability. I think these come out every two weeks.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/12january2022

Who cares

I think we haven't had the full effect of the return to school yet, by a long way.

So we could just conceivably get another uptick due to that.

Or we might get a lumpy bumpy plateau - hopefully heading down.

I think it's hard to know.

I hope we don't get another variant any time soon.

@MarshaBradyo

In my London borough the drop is sharp

Nearly halfway back down the peak

Same here on the Essex/Suffolk border. Our numbers have more than halved in the last week, from over 2000/100000 to under 1000.

There were nigh on 400 deaths yesterday, open your eyes people, deaths are rising not dropping... but what do you expect when you've a population of people who voted for the lying idiot we have in charge

@marieantoinehairnet

There were nigh on 400 deaths yesterday, open your eyes people, deaths are rising not dropping... but what do you expect when you've a population of people who voted for the lying idiot we have in charge

I’ve always understood that daily death statistics are not from the last 24 hours -some will be from days ago or even weeks. Is that not correct then? So, in a nutshell, 400 people didn’t die yesterday.