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Coronavirus - the new strain XXIV

lordsummit said:
R4 this morning said that more people in hospital with influenza virus than Covid currently. The peak of that not expected for a few weeks as well. We are rather obsessing about Covid now I feel.
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See my comment from last week's update. The point is that it's both and they're likely competing for the same beds/staff. The decision to hold off on flu vaccines for secondary school pupils has been another major government folly after the big push last year. A flu wave had been prediced too following the Australian winter season. Nevertheless, covid is significantly more deadly.

"Figures from the UK Health Security Agency show that the rate of flu admissions was 6.8 per 100,000 people in the week to 11 December [The highest for five years], compared to 6.6 per 100,000 for COVID-19."

https://news.sky.com/story/hospital...-for-first-time-since-pandemic-began-12769074
 
IanW said:
Hi @gavreid , looks like each time the wave is reducing. With a reduction at the peak, with lower gradients on the up and down and more time around the minima. But that could all change if the next wave is a new variant with more severe characteristics.
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How much is a genuine decline and how much reduction in testing?
A lot of people on zero contract jobs work with mild symptoms and deliberately don't test
 
davidsrsb said:
How much is a genuine decline and how much reduction in testing?
A lot of people on zero contract jobs work with mild symptoms and deliberately don't test
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Yes, it's impossible to follow testing other than throught the Zoe updates now. I've always focussed on hospitals (the graphs here) because they're the telling indicator and the earliest too. I think the deaths were down a little in each of the waves, which probably scales with the number of infections.
 
gavreid said:
I think the deaths were down a little in each of the waves, which probably scales with the number of infections.
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I am feeling that pandemics don't weaken with time, they simply eliminate the genetically vulnerable.
Once those are dead, the remaining victims are those with immune systems weakened by other disease or by medical suppression
 
davidsrsb said:
How much is a genuine decline and how much reduction in testing?
A lot of people on zero contract jobs work with mild symptoms and deliberately don't test
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As Gavreid has explained. The data that he presents is from the Zoe App and from government issued hospital admissions. Indie Sage reports on basically the same data.

The hospital admission data are government measured and registered data and give a good picture as to what is happening. But as you have stated, as the population becomes better able to deal with Covid (improved vaccination, Covid has killed many weaker / unlucky people leaving people with a stronger Covid defense) the numbers in hospital will come down in general (balanced with severity and infectiousness of the current Covid wave).
 
gavreid said:
The whole point of zero covid was to buy time for vaccination!
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one reporter I heard, either NPR or BBC said that zero Covid was so successful at suppressing the virus that many Chinese felt no urgency to get vaccinated, so the policy may have inadvertently contributed to a slow vaccine rollout.
 
sean99 said:
one reporter I heard, either NPR or BBC said that zero Covid was so successful at suppressing the virus that many Chinese felt no urgency to get vaccinated, so the policy may have inadvertently contributed to a slow vaccine rollout.
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Maybe! The Omicrons have been a bit of game changer...
 
Admissions up again this week nearly 40% - so too hospital acquired infection (44%), nearly matching the previous peak already.
 
1296 on Monday vs 965 the week before. There's no way that this peak is smaller than the Autumn one blowing that little theory out of the water. The blame is landing on the failure to complete the booster programme, which has now ground to a halt and the prevailing idea that this is all over. Take care over Christmas folks.

 
Wastewater sampling showing a lot of Covid around in Massachusetts. https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
Higher levels than anything we've seen previously this year since the initial Omicron wave.
Lots of flu and RSV here also - pediatricians are overwhelmed. Flu at 10 year high levels and not showing signs of slowing down (in Massachusetts) https://www.mass.gov/info-details/weekly-flu-report
And forecast wind chills of -20C for the weekend. Merry Christmas, bah humbug.
 
sean99 said:
And forecast wind chills of -20C for the weekend.
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Reminds me of my first winter in Philly. 7F and 3 ice storms - I'd never experienced that before. One night I went to bed and the next morning knee deep in snow, quite literally.
 
Molnupiravir was given to people twice a day, for five days at home, while they had the Omicron variant of Covid.

Those chosen were at a higher risk of death or hospitalisation from Covid due to age or underlying health conditions.

Despite aiding recovery, the drug did not decrease death rates or hospital admissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64070392
 
gavreid said:
Molnupiravir was given to people twice a day, for five days at home, while they had the Omicron variant of Covid.

Those chosen were at a higher risk of death or hospitalisation from Covid due to age or underlying health conditions.

Despite aiding recovery, the drug did not decrease death rates or hospital admissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64070392
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A classic case of treating the numbers. The drug did lower viral titres but (disappointingly) had no impact on survival or hospitalisation rates. It reduced the number of days with symptoms but that alone couldn’t justify the high cost. The vaccines did their job but perhaps if this drug was available at the outset of the pandemic before vaccines were available, lives might have been saved? That proposition might best be tested in China where their zero Covid policy has left a proportion of their population unvaccinated with resurgent infections now that lockdowns have ended.

One other issue is how early in their infection did patients manage to start treatment? I know one person who contacted the trial on day one of symptoms/ positive lateral flow Ag test but only managed to start the course on day 5 because their GP practice only contacted them after a delay with (get this) the practice manager saying to them over the phone “are you sure you want to do this?” -presumably because it created work for them.
 
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