Coronavirus - the new strain XXIII

[paulfromcamden]

Typical years' road deaths are >2k, often ~3k, I suspect last year's figures is a blip due, most probably, to the Covid measures we're talking about. And yes, the safety measures have brought those numbers down from clearly unacceptable levels in the tens of thousands. Would you reduce all speed limits, say to 10mph, to eliminate 99% of the remaining casualties? The question is one of balance of burden vs outcome, as it is with Covid.

According to the .gov figures:

2016 Killed 1792
2017 Killed 1793
2018 Killed 1784
2019 Killed 1752
2020 Killed 1460

But that's beside the point. Even 3000 annual deaths is a fraction of the deaths we're seeing from covid - even with 'mild' covid and jabs.

So I agree - it's a question of balance. And I guess everyone will have a different view on that.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

OK, my road death numbers are a bit behind the curve, I was under the impression >2k was more the norm, but hey, I'll accept it's <2k. But to reiterate my point, it is clear that in raw numbers, we accept annual death tolls of a few thousand for flu, and road casualties, without much fuss. So I take as my baseline that an annual death figure of ~3-5k is something the country tends to tolerate (there wasn't uproar in the streets when flu and road deaths were at this level). If the cost of reducing Covid deaths below that figure has an impact on the economy, should we do it?

 

[farfromthesun]

But to get back to the point I'm trying to make, the trend is clearly towards numbers which are orders of magnitude less scary than at the beginning. I think it's time the conversation turned to what is an appropriate balance of vaccination, NPIs, restrictions and support for the long-term. If there's one thing we're probably all agreed on, it is that we can't continue like this indefinitely. We probably can't continue like this for much longer. So when does the balance flip, and what to?

That trend could quite easily do a u-turn and head right back in the opposite direction and become orders of magnitude more scary. I think there's a real danger here, and it's exacerbated even more so when increasing numbers of people think it. I don't know what the answer is, however being complacent definitely isn't it.

 

[gavreid]

If we want an nhs that is capable of handling anything other than basic emergencies then people must accept that covid does not in anyway equate with flu at this point in time.

 

[IanW]

Yes, accepted. But the 6k deaths are from infecting something close to a quarter of the population, which means that if 'everybody' gets infected, the upper limit is on the order of 25k deaths. That's a lot more than is going to be acceptable, but it's coming down towards where flu used to be (without attracting much public comment).

I understand what you are saying, but I very much doubt that it is linear. But more importantly it is the vulnerable groups who will have the greatest proportion of deaths. Is it fair to let the virus rip so that everyone else can get on with normal, whilst effectively condemning people from vulnerable groups to die?

But to get back to the point I'm trying to make, the trend is clearly towards numbers which are orders of magnitude less scary than at the beginning. I think it's time the conversation turned to what is an appropriate balance of vaccination, NPIs, restrictions and support for the long-term. If there's one thing we're probably all agreed on, it is that we can't continue like this indefinitely. We probably can't continue like this for much longer. So when does the balance flip, and what to?

I would be surprised if anyone wants us to have restrictive NPIs in place for years to come.

I thought that my answer to your careful framing of this question earlier in the thread was reasonable. The only thing that I would add is that masks should be worn where vulnerable people need to go, e,g, public transport, hospitals, doctors surgeries, shops and congested buildings.

It is much easier to have this debate if we can talk about what needs to happen and what is reasonable and acceptable etc as opposed to reading completely ridiculous statements that suggest that Omicron is comparable with a cold etc.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I did ask, a couple of pages back, what measures people would suggest we adopt. I got just the one response (thank you IanW).

I get that this is a forum for carping and negativity, and I enjoy that as much as the next fishie as my posts will readily attest, but historically, global pandemics burn themselves out in a couple of years, and the trend supports a view that this one is behaving similarly. There's still water to go under the bridge, sure, but it's not complacent to give some thought to what the end game should be.

 

[paulfromcamden]

I get that this is a forum for carping and negativity.

It's also a thread about a global pandemic. Limited scope for lols ;-)

 

[mandryka]

I got just the one response (thank you IanW).

No. You got my response too. This

Why not just let them go into work if they feel up to being productive, and protect those who might get badly ill if they catch it? Offer them extra vaccine, extra meds etc. And help them to take special care about who they meet when there's a big wave of it. That way they spread it around but the damage is limited.

 

[Seanm]

I disagree, because everything I have seen and heard, discusses the vaccine effectiveness in terms of both reducing infection rates, AND reducing the severity of infection.

Also, anyone who takes notice of the info will be aware that vaccines do not have a binary effect as in 'vaccinated = safe' v 'unvaccinated = doomed' It is all a numbers game which can be reduced to 'risk of infection is reduced and risk of death further reduced, by full vaccination, BUT, some will still be vulnerable and some may die, despite vaccination.'

I don't know Mull: you only need to go back 6 months on this thread, to scraps around Israeli research on waning immunity, to see that discussion has been driven by effectiveness against infection. Policy too. This or that article or news report might spell out the difference between infection and disease but all the emphasis has been on the former. Understandable that there's some confusion. That's not to say that anti-vaxxers aren't exploiting the confusion.

 

[mandryka]

If we want an nhs that is capable of handling anything other than basic emergencies then people must accept that covid does not in anyway equate with flu at this point in time.

My feeling is that you're scare mongering for reasons best known to yourself when you say "capable of handling anything other than basic emergencies". Nevertheless, objectives about NHS provision are at the heart of the matter now.

 

[hc25036]

Covid:
6000 deaths in 4 weeks (Omicron is not stopping killing people because someone wanted to put a number on an internet forum)
A range of NPIs in place
A large change in public behaviour to make everyone safer
A massive vaccination program with 84% of people over 12 double vaccinated

Flu:
In a bad season maybe 6000 deaths in 4 weeks but it decays far quicker than Covid has.
No NPIs in place
No change in public behaviour
Only the vulnerable are vaccinated

I really do not see them as comparable.

Maybe @hc25036 can comment as they have much more knowledge in this area.

There have been dozens of posts on COVID vs flu, and @gavreid has answered nicely above. COVID as an infectious agent is not and never will be equivalent to flu, and to my mind, even though maybe the numbers are less scary now, as long as COVID is infecting millions of individuals it is far too early to be thinking is is all over.

We are an unlikely but not impossible random event away from a variant having omicron levels of infectivity and beta (or worse) levels of morbidity/mortality. The chances of that happening may be extremely slim, but they are not zero and we keep on just throwing the dice more often when we completely remove NPIs and encourage people to go back to complete normality at the current levels of infection.

I have no idea where the sweet spot of freedom vs danger lies, but it is somewhere north of the sweet spot where political expendiency can be found and that makes me a bit nervous. I'll keep wearing a mask in the supermarket and will keep turning down invitations to major gatherings where I can't trust veryone to at least have a negative lateral flow test for some time to come. Maybe even a year or two...

 

[hc25036]

My feeling is that you're scare mongering for reasons best known to yourself when you say "capable of handling anything other than basic emergencies". Nevertheless, objectives about NHS provision are at the heart of the matter now.

If only @gavreid was 'scaremongering'! In my world, he is at worst 'maybe a tad too worried'! I'll take that over 'what on earth don't you get?' every time

 

[MUTTY1]

This is an hour but it covers a lot of aspects of the disease and particularly the possibility of over-vaccinating. Professor Clancy is an engaging fellow.

 

[kensalriser]

Yes, accepted. But the 6k deaths are from infecting something close to a quarter of the population, which means that if 'everybody' gets infected, the upper limit is on the order of 25k deaths. That's a lot more than is going to be acceptable, but it's coming down towards where flu used to be (without attracting much public comment).

But to get back to the point I'm trying to make, the trend is clearly towards numbers which are orders of magnitude less scary than at the beginning. I think it's time the conversation turned to what is an appropriate balance of vaccination, NPIs, restrictions and support for the long-term. If there's one thing we're probably all agreed on, it is that we can't continue like this indefinitely. We probably can't continue like this for much longer. So when does the balance flip, and what to?

Can't continue like what indefinitely? Serious question.

 

[gavreid]

96 871 cases, 338 deaths and 1 593 hospitals from yesterday and 1 681 today (just a little lower that last week). The hospitalisations have been coming down much more slowly than they rose.

 

[Spraggons Den]

Just thinking about this a bit more, I just glanced over the infection surveys, to get a clearer idea. It was a glance, so I could be wrong of course. I reckon that there have been about 15M people with covid since the last week of December to the end of last week -- so most omicron. An omicron wave of c15M so far in the UK.

Deaths seem to have been about 6K. Of course some of these would have been "with" not "of", and some would have been vaccine refusers, as you know.

Less than 6,000 out of more than 15,000,000.

I think your figure of 15 million is a bit high - it doesn't feel right to me. That number would represent 1 in 4 of the population, gusting 1 in 3 of the adult population. Where i work in an office of about 50, there has been 5 cases so about 1 in 10.

So I had a quick and dirty look at the cases which are about an average of a 100k a day (sometimes more, sometimes less) over 30 days,which derives a figure of about 3 million. I know this figure is probably under as T&T is horlicks and BJ thinks PCRs are not worth a jot but if we stick with this number, it means the case fatality rate is about 1 in 500 (3 million divided by 6k) which contrasts nicely with a CFR of about 2% during the initial wave for most western countries or about 1 in 50 . Vaccines - yer gotta love 'em.

 

[Seeker_UK]

There have been dozens of posts on COVID vs flu, and @gavreid has answered nicely above. COVID as an infectious agent is not and never will be equivalent to flu, and to my mind, even though maybe the numbers are less scary now, as long as COVID is infecting millions of individuals it is far too early to be thinking is is all over.

But we run the risk of making decsiions on what, to me, seems a flawed comparison; effect on an unvaccinated population (covid) vs effect on a vaccinated population ('flu).

If one considers this graph (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/2048/cpsprodpb/11CBC/production/_122629827_microsoftteams-image-5.png), 5/6th of the 150k deaths was at a time when the population was unvaccinated so, yes, Covid has killed more that 'flu in one yeat because it had no vaccine and 'flu has. Going forward with a covid vaccine regime in place that can match that in place for 'flu (annual boosters targeted against most likely variants to be encountered) then Covid becomes as deadly as 'flu in a bad year (25k). So what is it that demands a more cautious, different approach for Covid as opposed to 'flu? Is the risk of a new deadly strain of 'flu appearing less than that for Covid?

 

[mandryka]

I think your figure of 15 million is a bit high - it doesn't feel right to me. That number would represent 1 in 4 of the population, gusting 1 in 3 of the adult population. Where i work in an office of about 50, there has been 5 cases so about 1 in 10.

So I had a quick and dirty look at the cases which are about an average of a 100k a day (sometimes more, sometimes less) over 30 days,which derives a figure of about 3 million. I know this figure is probably under as T&T is horlicks and BJ thinks PCRs are not worth a jot but if we stick with this number, it means the case fatality rate is about 1 in 500 (3 million divided by 6k) which contrasts nicely with a CFR of about 2% during the initial wave for most western countries or about 1 in 50 . Vaccines - yer gotta love 'em.

I wasn’t looking at all at the number of positive tests, I was looking at the ONS estimates in their infection surveys. I think that is the most reliable indicator of prevalence we have.

 

[mandryka]

Is the risk of a new deadly strain of 'flu appearing less than that for Covid?

That’s an interesting question, I wonder if it’s answerable.

 

[kensalriser]

But we run the risk of making decsiions on what, to me, seems a flawed comparison; effect on an unvaccinated population (covid) vs effect on a vaccinated population ('flu).

If one considers this graph (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/2048/cpsprodpb/11CBC/production/_122629827_microsoftteams-image-5.png), 5/6th of the 150k deaths was at a time when the population was unvaccinated so, yes, Covid has killed more that 'flu in one yeat because it had no vaccine and 'flu has. Going forward with a covid vaccine regime in place that can match that in place for 'flu (annual boosters targeted against most likely variants to be encountered) then Covid becomes as deadly as 'flu in a bad year (25k). So what is it that demands a more cautious, different approach for Covid as opposed to 'flu? Is the risk of a new deadly strain of 'flu appearing less than that for Covid?

Yes, because flu is a known quantity we've lived with for generations whereas Covid is novel.