That's by date reported, not date they died. eg. On 26th December only 3 deaths were reported, but 112 people actually died on 13th December (within 28 days of a positive test). The top graph lags the daily reporting but shows the actual trend.
Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]
- Thread starter RDGoodla
- Start date
Why should deaths peak in London long after median incubation time + median time to death after the last lockdown measure? (Around 5 days each, last measure introduced 15 December.)
It's possible I guess that the booster effect curve among the most vulnerable population (and people around them) serendipitously overtook the disease curve at just the right time ... but I wouldn't count on it. It could just be a blip.
It's possible I guess that the booster effect curve among the most vulnerable population (and people around them) serendipitously overtook the disease curve at just the right time ... but I wouldn't count on it. It could just be a blip.
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What lockdown measures? There were some restrictions but they were hardly enough to contain Omicron. It's been spreading freely, and the peak in London should represent herd immunity (a euphemism for 'everyone's had the bloody thing already') where the virus spread is starting to slow down due to reducing availability of new hosts; viral particles are landing on hosts with active defences preventing the virus from infecting.
Beancounter wise, if these are all the deaths it takes for natural herd immunity to kick in for Omicron then it really isn't all that much of a threat in western nations which are hovering around same levels of vaccinations as the UK (UK is higher on boosters than most, but that should only make a small difference).
A lockdown would spread the curve, but a new vaccine would be unlikely to come in time to make a difference on the total victims. Assuming it's natural herd immunity and not a blip on an increased rise.
A lockdown would spread the curve, but a new vaccine would be unlikely to come in time to make a difference on the total victims. Assuming it's natural herd immunity and not a blip on an increased rise.
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I'm aware of the reporting delays, hence my comment about the data probably being backfilled since Christmas. My concern was that this is two consecutive days of overly-high numbers and we wouldn't want it to be a trend appearing. I would have thought that the backlog would have been caught up before now, but then that is making a lot of assumptions about how quickly the data is filed. I suppose we would have heard more from within the hospitals if this was an indication of the numbers to be expected over the next week or two so hopefully just an artefact. The holidays over the Christmas and New Year period probably affect the reporting more than I had considered, even more than a week past the last holiday date. In fact, 12th January last year had numbers reported which were very close to the peak of that wave as well I notice.
On another note, here's an interesting finding from South African studies:
https://www.reuters.com/business/he...-has-higher-asymptomatic-carriage-2022-01-11/
Many more asymptomatic cases recorded there - possibly a six-fold increase in comparison to the Beta/Delta waves. Could be something to do with Omicron itself, could be something to do with high seroprevalence. It would certainly help to further explain why Omicron spreads so quickly - there may be a lot of people who don't have as much as a sniffle who could be inadvertently spreading the virus.
Oh, okay, your looking at the 2 day trend where normally after a weekend drop in reported cases, the second day is lower than the first with a more sawtooth pattern overall. No way to know yet.
Definitely over the hill in the UK:
I thought testing would have dropped given lack of general availability of test kits, but they haven't dropped that much so these downturns are legit. The +ve case rate echoes this:
I thought testing would have dropped given lack of general availability of test kits, but they haven't dropped that much so these downturns are legit. The +ve case rate echoes this:
PCR tests are down enormously. Most recent data on the dashboard (up to 13th January) shows a drop from 698k PCR tests on 6th January down the 472k PCR tests on 13th. That's a drop of one third in a week.
This isn't surprising, given the recommendations that confirmatory PCRs are no longer required, but the testing data isn't as representative as it was a week ago due to these changes in recommendations. A positive PCR result goes straight into the confirmed case numbers, a positive LFT without confirmation PCR may well not.
For some classic 'anecdata', my wife went to pick up our young son from school on Wednesday. A couple of the other mums in the queue ahead of her were chatting about how they were both a bit under the weather and thought they might have Covid but hadn't bothered to take a test! The whole, "It's endemic and just like the flu" narrative pushed by the media seems to have been widely accepted!
The Zoe app data seems to indicate a very slight dip in infections over the past few days so we probably are right around the peak, or perhaps just past it. In general, we'll have to keep an eye on the ONS data to have a proper grasp of the prevalence.
Deaths seem to have settled at a higher level than I'd have hoped, especially if we are only just now around the peak. We'll have to see if these number as the infections following the peak bleed through into hospitalisations and so forth. I'm assuming that Delta is now at a very level for the hospitalisations/deaths reported given how dominant Omicron has become.
This isn't surprising, given the recommendations that confirmatory PCRs are no longer required, but the testing data isn't as representative as it was a week ago due to these changes in recommendations. A positive PCR result goes straight into the confirmed case numbers, a positive LFT without confirmation PCR may well not.
For some classic 'anecdata', my wife went to pick up our young son from school on Wednesday. A couple of the other mums in the queue ahead of her were chatting about how they were both a bit under the weather and thought they might have Covid but hadn't bothered to take a test! The whole, "It's endemic and just like the flu" narrative pushed by the media seems to have been widely accepted!
The Zoe app data seems to indicate a very slight dip in infections over the past few days so we probably are right around the peak, or perhaps just past it. In general, we'll have to keep an eye on the ONS data to have a proper grasp of the prevalence.
Deaths seem to have settled at a higher level than I'd have hoped, especially if we are only just now around the peak. We'll have to see if these number as the infections following the peak bleed through into hospitalisations and so forth. I'm assuming that Delta is now at a very level for the hospitalisations/deaths reported given how dominant Omicron has become.
But overall testing has stayed up - it's not like all testing is down a third. So a drop on PCR alone isn't causing this downward turn, only increasing its downward gradient. If it were a result of testing numbers, not cases dropping, +ve case rate would be stable or going up with more cases but fewer tests.
With cases having peaked a fortnight ago, deaths could continue to go up for however long the infection lasts to conclusion. Actually, correlating case spikes with deaths, it looks like we should be around the peak of that too thankfully.
Tail may stay long if Omicron starts reaching older folk and we might get some regional humps for areas not currently experiencing high Omicron, but there can't be anywhere else for those graphs to go than down.
Are corona boosters really traditional vaccines any more or a new type of short term prophylactic vaccine? Antibodies have long half life, so with 3 monthly boosters I think it's possible the protective effects are purely because of serum antibody counts at initial infection. A treadmill we won't be able to exit from.
What will be the long term effects of using a vaccine more as a temporary antibody producer than an immune response primer?
What will be the long term effects of using a vaccine more as a temporary antibody producer than an immune response primer?
WhiningKhan
Regular
It is not just antibodies.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34636722/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34636722/
If the boosters did nothing more than pump up antibody levels, you might have a point, but the Cov-boost study showed that boosters provide a much stronger cellular response as well:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext
A heterologous mRNA booster (i.e. different type to the initial vaccination) seemed to provide a broader cellular response. This is as you'd expect with the immune system responding to different versions of the spike being fed in with the vaccinations.
How effective the broader response will be against future variants remains to be seen, but it doesn't look as though it is a case of antibodies or nothing.
We're currently living it here as my young daughter tested positive on Friday night and my wife tested positive yesterday morning. My son and myself are negative so far. My wife is a decde younger and has had 3 doses of Pfizer so I thought she'd be more likely to avoid infection than me. I had 2xAZ followed by Moderna. If I avoid catching it, it might be something to do with the heterologous dosing? Alternatively, it might just be that my wife caught it due to greater exposure as she's a school teacher and we've had few mitigations in the classroom here in the UK. Daughter caught it at nursery and it might just be coincidence that my wife showed symptoms a couple of days later. No way of knowing, of course. My daughter seems to have broken the fever quickly and seems OK. Wife has symptoms of a very bad cold.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext
A heterologous mRNA booster (i.e. different type to the initial vaccination) seemed to provide a broader cellular response. This is as you'd expect with the immune system responding to different versions of the spike being fed in with the vaccinations.
How effective the broader response will be against future variants remains to be seen, but it doesn't look as though it is a case of antibodies or nothing.
We're currently living it here as my young daughter tested positive on Friday night and my wife tested positive yesterday morning. My son and myself are negative so far. My wife is a decde younger and has had 3 doses of Pfizer so I thought she'd be more likely to avoid infection than me. I had 2xAZ followed by Moderna. If I avoid catching it, it might be something to do with the heterologous dosing? Alternatively, it might just be that my wife caught it due to greater exposure as she's a school teacher and we've had few mitigations in the classroom here in the UK. Daughter caught it at nursery and it might just be coincidence that my wife showed symptoms a couple of days later. No way of knowing, of course. My daughter seems to have broken the fever quickly and seems OK. Wife has symptoms of a very bad cold.
I don't think anyone will avoid infection. I think like every cold, everyone will get it - you'll just have varying degrees of symptoms ranging down to zero. I know a number of families where everyone had it except one person. eg. One family, everyone tested C19 positive where all have been vaccinated, except a 12 yo girl who's had no vaccination. There's no way she couldn't have been exposed to the same infectious agents as her parents without getting infected, ergo she must have just responded with her own immune system. Another, a family flies out to Texas to visit relatives over Christmas. Nine people get C19 and test positive, one 10 yo 'avoids' it. Strikes me as far more likely she got the disease but it didn't take hold. Short of doing daily PCR tests to catch asymptomatic infection, you'd never prove they had it or not.
From this point onwards, once past the overwhelmed hospitals, it's about getting exposed like every other cold that does the rounds and fighting it off. The vaccines have plugged the hole in our cellular defences so we won't be facing future infections cold. Possibly if it puts pressure on hospitals, Covid jabs could be offered similar to flu vaccines, but relentless vaccination and mitigations is unsustainable. Apparently only 10% of deaths in the UK were people without underlying conditions, and the disease is very heavily skewed against the old, so it's not unlike flu in that respect. By and large the average person just gets on with it. And maybe people will invest more in staying healthy up front so they're better able to resist diseases in general? Better living reduces cardiac disease etc. which C19 precipitates as a problem but which are problems and big killers in and of themselves anyway.
From this point onwards, once past the overwhelmed hospitals, it's about getting exposed like every other cold that does the rounds and fighting it off. The vaccines have plugged the hole in our cellular defences so we won't be facing future infections cold. Possibly if it puts pressure on hospitals, Covid jabs could be offered similar to flu vaccines, but relentless vaccination and mitigations is unsustainable. Apparently only 10% of deaths in the UK were people without underlying conditions, and the disease is very heavily skewed against the old, so it's not unlike flu in that respect. By and large the average person just gets on with it. And maybe people will invest more in staying healthy up front so they're better able to resist diseases in general? Better living reduces cardiac disease etc. which C19 precipitates as a problem but which are problems and big killers in and of themselves anyway.
Seems to depend on the school. I know a couple of kids sat in the freezing cold, one a six year old placed next to an door opening to the outside's sub-zero temperatures. Not really sure of the value of shivering infants on national health.
WhiningKhan
Regular
Except by antibody testing.
Antibodies can linger and are generated from vaccines. Plus seroprevalence testing already says pretty much everyone in the UK has antibodies!
They can't really test for long term
Okay, but serum T cells are also not an indicator of long term immunity.
AFAICS the control was not serum antibodies and T cells at the same time after second dose compared to third dose, but simply after no extra dose. But it's hard to read on mobile so correct me if I'm wrong.
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