NWR new zero tolerance covid thread

Graphs and maps from EUROMOMO
(please, scroll down the page to the 4 lines with England, Scotland, Wales, and NI excess deaths statistics (in %), they are eloquent).
These deaths statistics have been collected for many years (before covid) and are difficult to manipulate.

The data for the 4 nations show excess deaths in England (in percentage) were much higher than in other UK nations in 2020. This is an irrefutable fact at macro level
(we also know excess deaths in 2021 will look different for England versus other nations as a consequence of 2020 as ED are measured versus 5 past years average)

To pretend precautions are meaningless is absurd as it has been proven on micro, medium and large and international levels and is scientifically substantiated that precautions do work.

Of course, given the avalanche of data, analysis and hidden agendas, it is always possible to extract very partial data to prove once point.
 
Graphs and maps from EUROMOMO
(please, scroll down the page to the 4 lines with England, Scotland, Wales, and NI excess deaths statistics (in %), they are eloquent).
These deaths statistics have been collected for many years (before covid) and are difficult to manipulate.

The data for the 4 nations show excess deaths in England (in percentage) were much higher than in other UK nations in 2020. This is an irrefutable fact at macro level
(we also know excess deaths in 2021 will look different for England versus other nations as a consequence of 2020 as ED are measured versus 5 past years average)

To pretend precautions are meaningless is absurd as it has been proven on micro, medium and large and international levels and is scientifically substantiated that precautions do work.

Of course, given the avalanche of data, analysis and hidden agendas, it is always possible to extract very partial data to prove once point.
Thanks for the link Antoine very useful.
 
To draw the conclusion you are drawing Antoine would it not be necessary to do a covariate analysis of excess deaths factoring in age, vulnerability, % in care home etc, lifestyle, and maybe some other relevant factors too?
 
To draw the conclusion you are drawing Antoine would it not be necessary to do a covariate analysis of excess deaths factoring in age, vulnerability, % in care home etc, lifestyle, and maybe some other relevant factors too?
Indeed - I was thinking that although lots of stats are out there, they're very tricky to analyse and compare (between nations or within nations). Certainly the amount of time that people here have is not sufficient to draw meangingful conclusions. However, there must surely be some wel-respected stats analysts out there who have done the work and published it (including all workings) by now. I feel that as a population, we hardly know anything more about Covid and how to avoid it than we did at the beginning.

"Yeah, of course more English are dying because the Scots all die young from a diet of deep-fried mars bars, so don't get old enough to be wiped out by Covid"

So we are still in a position where the cautious and the skeptical are still at loggerheads when it seems that there should be enough properly formed evidence to settle some of the arguments. Guess that people are stubborn and this stuff is really hard!
 
Antoine,

I don’t think those stats are relevant at all to the point being made in the video I mentioned. The point was about the differences in infection, hospitalisation and death rates now, when Scotland has notably different restrictions, not last year or even earlier this year. Indeed, I can’t recall scotland having meaningfully different restrictions in lockdown last year (although my memory may be failing me) but it’s not the point being made anyway. So, contrary to your assertion, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful benefit in the data from the additional restrictions at the moment.

Could this be caused by lots of movement between england and scotland? I find that hard to imagine especially since we’re well past any period when large numbers of english people might have been holidaying in scotland. That’s even more important since a large portion of cases in england are in schoolchildren who clearly won’t be travelling to scotland at the moment.

In short, it seems to me that the high infection rate in the uk generally is not really due to relaxation of restrictions but due to the decision not to vaccinate 12-15 year olds early enough and slow take up of booster jabs.

Dan
 
To draw the conclusion you are drawing Antoine would it not be necessary to do a covariate analysis of excess deaths factoring in age, vulnerability, % in care home etc, lifestyle, and maybe some other relevant factors too?
Joel,

You are right on one aspect! All these parameters do matter. It is a plural-parameters problem. But are age profiles significantly different in England versus the 3 other nations? ...
Can those you mention reverse the body of evidence? (Both evidence in different countries approach and scientific studies on mitigating measures leading to a huge impact in England versus other UK nations).
Have you got anything to support that these parameters would disadvantage England versus the rest of the UK and of the World in an important quantitative way?
It is clear that many of the nations which took a "relaxed" approach versus the pandemic (US, Sweden, Brazil, Netherland and England) have had many excess deaths when looking at comparable countries (England versus UK nations, Sweden versus Nordic nations, Netherlands which amended their approach after underperforming...)

Note I refrain from drawing conclusions. I limit myself to recording data/facts and mentioning findings about precautions impact.
 
Dan,
I was not strictly responding to your post and to a very specific study which is open to many challenges (are these 4 nations at the same stage of a wave? same climate?... hundreds of questions...)... This is for sure!
As for your conclusion that relaxation of restriction does not have an impact while all is due to a delay in 12-15 year olds vaccinations... I would suggest these would require to include many other countries as well as recording many parameters to support this assertion... this study seems a bit UK centered if you want my opinion with nations in different circumstances. As I said before there will be times when some EU countries will have higher problems or lower problems.
 
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Dan,
I was not strictly responding to your post and to a very specific study which is open to many challenges (are these 4 nations at the same stage of a wave? same climate?... hundreds of questions...)... This is for sure!
As for your conclusion that relaxation of restriction does not have an impact while all is due to a delay in 12-15 year olds vaccinations... I would suggest these would require to include many other countries as well as recording many parameters to support this assertion... this study seems a bit UK centered if you want my opinion with nations in different circumstances. As I said before there will be times when some EU countries will have higher problems or lower problems.
Fair enough if you weren’t responding to the point about whether we should be reimposing restrictions today or not. One point though, I didn’t state that “all is due to a delay in 12-15 year old vaccinations”. I believe that’s by far the biggest driver here (and significantly more impactful than mask wearing and other restrictions) but not “all” of the explanation.
 
It does seem that the recent rise in cases has been concentrated amongst the young, and there is a school of thought that the school age groups are now approaching herd immunity and cases will therefore start to drop naturally in 2-3 weeks. Time will tell, but hospitalisations are still way below even the most optimistic Sage predictions in July. Reasons to be positive.
 
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I wonder if there's a compound effect from having had Covid and then the jabs?
There is - you get better protection. But there is not enough evidence to say the same is true if you get infected AFTER vaccination. Tim Spector mentioned it in one of his videos.

(At least I think thst is the right way round - clearly at this point in time there would be a lot more people who caught it before vaccination, so easier to get data)
 
What does protection percentage relate to? Hospitalisation on regular exposure to virus? Or is it symptom development? I'm assuming the latter.*

Edit: Just been watching some of the Tim Spector videos - really excellent, and required viewing, really. He makes the link between vaccination rates and infection rates so obvious and points out that vaccination rates have stalled.

* I've just watched Spector's presentation of that graphic and I think he "mis-spoke" when saying that the chances of reinfection for those without vaccination was 65%, and it goes up if you've had the vaccine... Odd that they chose to state 12 months for the without-vaccination whereas it was 6 months for everything else. Would be interesting to see the 6 month % as well.
 
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Odd that they chose to state 12 months for the without-vaccination whereas it was 6 months for everything else. Would be interesting to see the 6 month % as well.
Dunno. Could be something to do with when the data was collected and the scarcity of unvaccinated people in that period?

What does protection percentage relate to? Hospitalisation on regular exposure to virus? Or is it symptom development? I'm assuming the latte
Considering the efficacy percentages quoted after clinical trials, it must be the latter.
 
The SAGE modelling for autumn/winter is available here.

"I was particularly amused," commented the President of the Royal College of Physicians of London, "by the line: ‘The pattern of transmission in England since 19 July has been very unexpected’".

I'm puzzled why the roll-out of boosters has appeared to be so slow. The notion that vaccinations would need to be repeated was apparent before they were developed, and certainly widely stated once vaccines were clearly effective, so is not new; nor is the data from Israel (here) showing the importance of boosters.

Like most hospitals, mine is not suffering from any particularly troublesome burden of covid admissions, but we are suffering from being unable to discharge patients because carers and care home places are not available, and a significant part of that is people being off sick from covid, or off work from track-and-trace. It is not by any means the whole reason.
 
I'm puzzled why the roll-out of boosters has appeared to be so slow.
I'm not sure Tim Spector has any inside knowledge on this but he suggested it was vaccination centre capacity, partly caused by volunteers dropping out.

But that wouldn't explain why no one has been to my elderly parents' home to vaccinate them yet. That sounds more like pressure on GP services. They have had the flu vaccination for this winter, but couldn't be Covid-jabbed at the same time, which you might have thought would have saved worm.

I've not heard of any vaccine supply issues.
 
Is the booster roll-out slow, at least in part, because of the requirement to wait six months after the second injection?
I've no knowledge, I'm afraid. For what it's worth, my second jab was in February. Given I look after covid and immunosuppressed patients, I'd have thought I'd have been a priority for their sake. (I.e. as for kids, the urgency to jab me is to protect someone else.)

It is certainly encouraging that those modelling the plague (I'm struggling for a better word: can I call it an endemic?), including those not notable for prior optimism, all seem to predict it will subside over the coming winter. I wonder what will happen to China / NZ / Aus, where the impact of vaccinations has not been boosted, at obvious human cost, by the spread of infections.
 
Is the booster roll-out slow, at least in part, because of the requirement to wait six months after the second injection?
Apparently the invitations are not always being sent as soon as they could be after 6 months. But you could try booking yourself in without an invitation, if you are eligible, or indeed just turn up at a vaccination centre. As I have one very close by, I think I'll just try droppjng in when passing, as it is less hassle.

Incidentally, although the required period between your 2nd and booster is widely reported as 6 months, it should officially be a bit longer - 190 days.
 
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