Coronavirus infection rate is still too high

[patman post]

The point I was making is the R0 is the rate of infection. If it is below 1 then the number continues down and so you won't have a second wave regardless whether we top other nations in cases today or not. And at some point the government is going to have to open up the economy because our response costs money and that is just an inconvenient truth people are going to have to accept sooner or later. This isn't a free lunch. You do actually need tax to come in just to finance the borrowing - and that doesn't mean paying it back I might add. Germany and SK have had spikes. You will expect to see that for every measure you loosen. This isn't something unique to the UK. So what are you asking for? To never get out of lockdown? Because that is the only realistic way you are going to stop the spread of infection. SK have now shut down schools to contain this. And if it spreads further are they going to shut down their entire economy? I doubt it. Europe is beginning to realise that the Swedish model is the only realistic model to move forward. And as Europe is behind, at some point they can expect a second wave that will be contained by mitigated risk evaluation rather than a second lockdown.

Norway and Denmark say they will open up tourism between their two countries from 15 June but will maintain restrictions for Swedes.

Sweden did not impose a lockdown, unlike its Nordic neighbours, and its Covid-19 death toll - above 4,000 - is by far the highest in Scandinavia.

Norway imposed rigid restrictions early (from 12 March) and so far has fewer Covid cases than either Denmark or Sweden. It's an area that interests me for family connections...

[Borchester]

One only needs to look at the daily cases for Iran on Worldometer to see what the likely effect of lifting lockdown too early might be.

Iran imposed lockdown around 13th March and lifted it around 5th May.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/">https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/    . . .and scroll down to find the bar chart of Iran's confirmed daily cases.

My original estimate was burn out by 13 June with less than 400 deaths between 14-20 June (dates inclusive). But cottontops are spiteful old sods and have recently increased their death rate. So now I reckon we won't see this Peking Pox settle down until 23 June.



Lucky no one took me up on the bet about the fox food    

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

One only needs to look at the daily cases for Iran on Worldometer to see what the likely effect of lifting lockdown too early might be.

Iran imposed lockdown around 13th March and lifted it around 5th May.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/">https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/    . . .and scroll down to find the bar chart of Iran's confirmed daily cases.

[Javert]

Well I guess that because they don't have perfect data, and they allowed the infections to get pretty much out of control, they now have to release them very gradually and basically just wait a few weeks each time to see what happens to hospital admissions.



Each time they release a few small items, there will be more and more people stretching it beyond that - i suspect that a lot of people are about 2 weeks ahead of them and are already doing the things they think will be allowed in a week or two from now.  Judging by where I live, people already started mixing in a socially distanced way in their gardens or out the front of their houses about 2 weeks go.



It's kind of like being on a diet but worse.  You can stay on the diet all week, but just one binge out on a Saturday night and you're back to square one or worse, and in this case, your bathroom scales are made by amstrad and will only tell you what your weight was two weeks ago.

[B0ycey]

South Korea's "spike" is a reported rise to 34 daily infections — the first above 30 in over a month. Germany has contained its daily new infections to below 1000, but it's now crept above that figure. The UK's daily rate remains consistently high and is currently at 1887 — the perception among many people is that this is too high to safely ease the lock-down...

The point I was making is the R0 is the rate of infection. If it is below 1 then the number continues down and so you won't have a second wave regardless whether we top other nations in cases today or not. And at some point the government is going to have to open up the economy because our response costs money and that is just an inconvenient truth people are going to have to accept sooner or later. This isn't a free lunch. You do actually need tax to come in just to finance the borrowing - and that doesn't mean paying it back I might add. Germany and SK have had spikes. You will expect to see that for every measure you loosen. This isn't something unique to the UK. So what are you asking for? To never get out of lockdown? Because that is the only realistic way you are going to stop the spread of infection. SK have now shut down schools to contain this. And if it spreads further are they going to shut down their entire economy? I doubt it. Europe is beginning to realise that the Swedish model is the only realistic model to move forward. And as Europe is behind, at some point they can expect a second wave that will be contained by mitigated risk evaluation rather than a second lockdown.

[Javert]

It seems this will with us for a long time — mainly because politics guided (and is still guiding) decisions while claiming to be guided by the science. Can anyone be blamed for fearing that bringing in the lock-down late now means it is being eased too early...



PS: and others think so too — Greece has reportedly banned UK-resident tourist because of its poor UK Covid record...

Here's some more maths.



This chart shows the current estimated R0 by UK region.



The thing to note here is that you can see the difference on the doubling (or halving) rate that just a single decimal point change in R0 makes.  



As soon as this R rate goes above one, the number of cases will start to double exponentially every x days.  The higher the number, the shorter the time to double.  Even with an R of 1.1, the number of cases will double around every 2 weeks or so.  That means even at 1.1, we will be back to peak death rates in a couple of months from now, and 3 months from now NHS will be overwhelmed.



This is how much little room they have, unless they find out that a lot higher portion of people have already had it, and there is still no credible peer sourced large volume study to show that - the last ONS estimate from yesterday estimated that 7% of the UK population has been infected with a death to infection rate of just under 1%, which is pretty much the same number used in the original Imperial College study.



If this data is anything like correct, there is very little scope for significant changes in behaviour without causing big rises.  Hopefully the track and trace will help but in spite of what the government claims, it seems that won't be fully operational for several weeks.



https://i.ibb.co/5K6M0rT/R-Rates-Regional-20200529.gif">

[patman post]

Nobody is going abroad away. Who is going to book off three weeks to spent one week in Greece?



Besides why does everyone think that anyway that opens up their economy is going to escape the second wave? The R0 is the rate of infection, not those who are infected. We now have spikes in SK and Germany. Why is it you single out the UK for currently being behind them in policy and only trying to catch up so not left economically behind and not those who have already opened up?



It is only a matter of time before the West is under the Swedish model and the only realistic way to control the R0 is for everyone to follow the advice to protect themselves and others. Not to keep everyone indoors.

South Korea's "spike" is a reported rise to 34 daily infections — the first above 30 in over a month. Germany has contained its daily new infections to below 1000, but it's now crept above that figure. The UK's daily rate remains consistently high and is currently at 1887 — the perception among many people is that this is too high to safely ease the lock-down...

[papasmurf]

Any country that relies on tourism. I don't know what the policy in Greece is in regards to the UK but I suspect that it may have been made the same way France made theirs - reciprocal. But whilst the Tories have quarantined air travel, it basically strangles foreign holidays being booked here and forces people to take staycations so on that regards it doesn't matter.

France is not letting Brits in as tourists, for it seems to the CEO of Brittany ferries the rest of this year. (There are no passenger ferries scheduled only freight.)

(Next update later today.)

[B0ycey]

They can't get abroad unless it is an exceptional circumstance. What country is going to accept anyone from this septic isle anyway?

Any country that relies on tourism. I don't know what the policy in Greece is in regards to the UK but I suspect that it may have been made the same way France made theirs - reciprocal. But whilst the Tories have quarantined air travel, it basically strangles foreign holidays being booked here and forces people to take staycations so on that regards it doesn't matter.

[papasmurf]

Nobody is going abroad away. Who is going to book off three weeks to spent one week in Greece?

They can't get abroad unless it is an exceptional circumstance. What country is going to accept anyone from this septic isle anyway?

[B0ycey]

Nobody is going abroad away. Who is going to book off three weeks to spent one week in Greece?



Besides why does everyone think that anyway that opens up their economy is going to escape the second wave? The R0 is the rate of infection, not those who are infected. We now have spikes in SK and Germany. Why is it you single out the UK for currently being behind them in policy and only trying to catch up so not left economically behind and not those who have already opened up?



It is only a matter of time before the West is under the Swedish model and the only realistic way to control the R0 is for everyone to follow the advice to protect themselves and others. Not to keep everyone indoors.

[patman post]

There will probably be a second wave, writes David Hunter, the Richard Doll professor of epidemiology and medicine in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, in The Guardian:



Early estimates of R0, the original infection rate, for Covid-19 were in the range of 2.0 to 3.0, but more recent estimates have come in at 4.0 or more. This is substantially higher than the usual estimate for influenza of about 1.4 to 2.0. The infection rate dropped incrementally with the series of recommendations that started on 12 March, but did not drop precipitously until the full lockdown was announced 11 days later. The epidemic grew much faster prior to the lockdown than it has diminished afterwards. To decline at the same rate, the R number would now have to be about 0.25 – and no one thinks it has declined to that level.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/28/coronavirus-infection-rate-too-high-second-wave">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... econd-wave">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/28/coronavirus-infection-rate-too-high-second-wave



It seems this will with us for a long time — mainly because politics guided (and is still guiding) decisions while claiming to be guided by the science. Can anyone be blamed for fearing that bringing in the lock-down late now means it is being eased too early...



PS: and others think so too — Greece has reportedly banned UK-resident tourist because of its poor UK Covid record...