[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare

On every every Metric, admissions, patients in care, patients on ventilators And deaths the numbers are currently less than the first wave by a factor of 10 or more.

Yes, but the trajectory is inevitable without intervention.

Considering the NHS was not “overwhelmed” in the first wave, there is plenty of capacity and no justification for a second national lockdown unless these figures increase considerably.

A situation where the NHS essentially had to suspend all non-critical care isn't a serious, viable minimum benchmark to adhere to.

There isn’t really even a justification for all the current extra local restrictions, as currently all decision making seems to be made on infection rates.

The Lancet article states

In which case we should already be seeing large increases now in admissions and ventilation - and were not.

This can only mean:

- this second wave ( I don’t personally think it is a second wave, but I’ll use the term to refer to this time period) is less Dangerous/ more milder strain.

Or

- the COVID tests are inaccurate - as alluded to by several scientists regarding the false positives issue.

Without genuine, accurate case data for the first wave making any such comparisons is pointless.

What is far more likely is that we are intervening earlier rather than later, to avoid an absolutely inevitable outcome. We don't have a reference point in the first wave for when the first wave hit approximately 5,000 cases per day. Possibly some around mid-February.

Imperial College London estimated that the around 1.8 million people had been infected in the UK by 28th March, when Government figures would have indicated 30,000 infections - a significant order of magnitude lower I'm sure you'll agree.

The Government are weighing up a short intervention earlier in the wave versus a longer one later in the wave, however the absence of meaningful data from the first wave makes comparisons meaningless. What we do know is that testing capacity is being stretched, the time taken to get results (and thus identify close contacts) is taking too long. At this point intervention is inevitable unless the Government want to accept uncontrolled growth.