Re: Coronavirus
 

That's true . . obviously a fine balancing act between overwhelming the NHS and keeping the economy afloat . . Christmas parties or not ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Indeed, I believe we will probably end up in another lockdown. Which could of helped to have been avoided had social distancing been brought back in.


Hope I’m wrong however

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's all the selfish people hoarding all the tests and testing themselves every day.

Re: Coronavirus
 

jfman has predicted one too. I hope you're both wrong but I certainly expect stronger measures post Christmas.

Re: Coronavirus
 

After just seeing the latest BBC article, I'm not placing any bets.

Covid: First UK death recorded with Omicron variant

Sketchy to say the least, no details yet

Re: Coronavirus
 

Boris had apparently said this morning he won’t rule out implementing further measures prior to Christmas. I don’t expect a lockdown this side of Christmas but I do think rule of six & social distancing could be back in play.

Something has got Boris, Javid & Gove seriously spooked

Re: Coronavirus
 

one person has died!..........runs to the hills with head on fire

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yup very sketchy, especially as ‘with’ != ‘of’

Re: Coronavirus
 

on 1st Nov there were 9670 people in Hospital with Covid, last week 9th Dec there were 7413.

No one was claiming the NHS was about to go under in November .Maybe there was but I didn't see much about it, there was no talk of restrictions.

on the 4th Nov there were 1034 on ventilation beds on the 9th Dec there were 900

on the 27th Oct the daily hospitalisation rate was 1150 on the 6th Dec it was 839.

I don't doubt for one second that these figures will rise, they may get back to early November levels, they may even exceed early November levels.

But the trigger wasn't pulled in early November, which means the Government were OK with those levels.

The fact they have (half) pulled the trigger without data is alarming.

We are not in the situation we were in, in 2020 and early 2021, where you could argue that being cautious and even over cautious was acceptable.

81% have had two Jabs

a further 8% have just the one (most of them will be in the 12-16 category as that was the advice)

and even an impressive 40% have had three (I need to sort mine out this week)

There's approx 9M of the population under 12, which is approx 13%.

Most (I would argue) of the unvaccinated are those that medically can't be and children under 12, that gain no benefit from it.

considering 89% of the population have had the first Jab and 13% been told they don't need it, that really makes the hard core anti-vaxxers, in reality a pretty small number.

Plus there'll be some in that hard core anti-vax that will probably have some natural immunity.

So the vaccines would have to just not work at all, to get to anything that resembles last year.

In short, I can't see how the case for any restrictions at the moment has been made.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I am assuming the concern is that we're a few weeks out from huge increases above November levels. The Government has already shown, as you point out, it is happy with the numbers to back then so presumably they think it's going to explode.

They would be projecting the cases to rise x amount, of which y% will go into hospital. Even if y is lower than Delta if X is dramatically higher it would be a problem.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is why they are concerned:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...ry=NOR~DNK~ZAF

Note Norway and Denmark are ahead of the UK for doubly-vaccinated, but behind for boosters.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's not about current or past levels, it's the issue about future levels that's concerning.

Re: Coronavirus
 

But you're looking at infections again. Which would be an issue in a very low vaccinated population.

But we're not.

---------- Post added at 13:32 ---------- Previous post was at 13:31 ----------

But that will only happen if the vaccines don't work.

---------- Post added at 13:33 ---------- Previous post was at 13:32 ----------

What's concerning about the future levels?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nice chart . . click on the box to add Andorra ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well, they think there is a vaccine escape right? It seems early data says the booster provides 70-75% protection against asymptomatic infection which is impressively high considering it's developed against an earlier strain and even then they think the booster or the standard two jabs provide more protection against hospitalisation and death.

So encouraging so far but need to roll out that booster faster.

But as I understand it's all early numbers and the case rates are looking at getting so high that if we're wrong about that then problems could happen. If come early January those fears are misplaced then lift the restrictions again.