Covid-19 Gambles

[JohnW2]

In view of some of the slightly 'confrontational' responses I've been getting, I think I should attempt to clarify my position.

There are very few certainties in all this (but see below **), so, just like everyone else, I cannot and would not attempt to claim that I know what is, or isn't, going to happen, and most certainly would not (apart from the ** below ) 'assert' anything, in any direction.

However, I have spent most of my professional life having to consider not "what is likely to happen" but, rather, "what might happen", and do what I can do to judge (and ideally roughly quantify) how probable (likely) it is that things which "might happen" actually "will happen".

Given uncertainties, my inclination (and 'upbringing') is to be cautious (i.e. err on the 'side of caution').

As I keep saying, in the current situation, essentially all of our faith/hope is being put in the belief that increasing immunity due to vaccination will 'turn things around', and negate deteriorations due to other changes. It is inevitable that will happen to some extent, but we really don't know to what extent, and over what time period, that will happen - and nor do we know what degree of population vaccination (hence immunity) we will ultimately achieve.

I would be much less nervous about what is going to happen on Monday if I had seen at least some signs that the increasing roll-out of vaccination was at least starting to slow the increases - but, with little over 48 hours to go, I still only see the converse (accelerating increases). That's why, for what it's worth, I would probably have advised that the upcoming 'Freedom' should have been delayed at least until some signs of an effect of increasing vaccination was being seen (without those additional relaxations).

[** amidst all the uncertainties, there is at least one certainty - that, if nothing else changes to counter it, a relaxation of measures designed to reduce inter-personal contact/proximity will result in more infections (followed, in due course, by more hospitalisations and more deaths). I can't tell you how many more infections there will be, and obviously hope that it's not too many, but it is inevitable that there will be some ]

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Since you've done a good deal of analysis, you will have noticed that the infection rate in March 2020 had already peaked before lockdown.

This is a common argument, often used by lockdown sceptics.

Whilst some of his arguments are ones that we've heard from many, that particular argument is not 'common' since, as echoes had to concede when I posted the graphs, his assertion was totally wrong - the peak of infection rate occurred long after the start of the March lockdown.

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

This may sound a very silly question, but why is this in electrics?

 

[JohnW2]

717 were admitted to hospital yesterday - I can't find total number in hospital.

3,964 today - I'll show you the graphs later.

Apologies - I got sidetracked and forgot about this!

Below I've added 'hospital occupancy' (number of patients in hospital) to a graph like the one in post #6. In a second graph I've presented the same data, but with an expanded vertical axis, so that you can see more clearly what everything has been doing recently (other than 'new cases', which goes way off the top of the graph!).

In order to display the several metrics (which obviously have very different absolute values) on the same graph, I have plotted them all as percentages of their (7-day average) peak during January 21. For hospital occupancy, the actual reported peak was 39,254 (on 18 January) and the peak 7-day average (which is used for the percentages plotted in the graph) was 38,389 (on 23 January - i.e. average of the 7 days up to and including 23 Jan).

Given that the average hospital stay is pretty constant, the hospital occupancy figures essentially simply mirror the hospital admissions one, with 'lags' between changes if figures are rising or falling. When things were at their peak in January, hospital occupancy was around 10 time the number of daily admissions, implying an average hospital stay of about 10 days. Of course, if admissions rise very rapidly, there will be a period during which the number of hospitalised patients could be very high (because new patients are being admitted much faster than others are being discharged/dying).

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

This may sound a very silly question, but why is this in electrics?

Not silly at all - and, as for the answer ...

I also apologise for posting it in this forum (f it 'survives' here), for which it is about as 'off-topic' as one can imagine but, as I said in the other thread, this is one place where I feel that I am 'amongst friends'!

[I would add that in that 'other thread' it was partially Simon who started this, but I moved my response to this new thread which at least did not have an 'electrical title' ] ... and, as you will have seen, I also said in my OP ...

Although only 'scratching the surface' (of a very complex issue), this is going to end up very long [split into two posts, because of a 10,000 character limit] and. probably for most of you, 'boring' - so please only read it if you are really interested.

Kind Regards, John

 

[SimonH2]

The poor little one must have had half a dozen Covid tests in as many weeks, because of 'elevated temperature'! Dad refers to the nursery not as a petri dish but, rather as "The Infection Exchange"!

Our two have been at nursery and despite the routine runny noses don't seem to have fared too badly.

Back to the subject of NPI effectiveness, there's also the factor of how well they are observed. I'm sure were not alone in seeing large groups of people (mostly youths) hanging around together.
And then we had a pub in the next town that had to be closed by the police during the first lockdown, and the wonan in the same town who's first action after being informed she was positive was the get a taxi to a pub, and the woman who (despite working for a large employer with a policy of full pay and no "totting up" for covid related absence) still went to work after a positive test !
So even if thibgs weren't officially relaxed next Monday, I can't help thinking that compliance was well on the wane anyway.

And therein lies another factor that's probably impossible to quantify - if you keep a restriction in place too long then people (as a whole) start to lose respect. But I suspect that loss extends to other measures. So there's this unquantifiable drop in effectiveness over time.
It's already been hinted at, with mention of places like Sweden having a different cultural attitude.

 

[mikeey84]

And therein lies another factor that's probably impossible to quantify - if you keep a restriction in place too long then people (as a whole) start to lose respect

That's the main reason there are so many psychologists and behaviour scientists on SAGE. It's a fine line to tread to get the most effective measures

 

[SimonH2]

The one thing I can say with complete certainty, and I suspect all of us are in agreement over this ... I'm glad it wasn't me having to make these decisions

It's so easy to sit back and criticise with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge that TPTB simply didn't have back then. Whatever decisions they'd made would have been "obviously wrong" to some faction or other
And I recall seeing an article where someone had a leaked photo of a whiteboard used early on while considering options, risks, etc. From memory, quite correctly, whoever was in the group had included the potential for "NHS collapse" and "mass deaths" - but with the benefit of hindsight, someone was using this to accuse them of "having considered abandoning the old/weak to die" which IMO is a bit of an unfair criticism. In any rational consideration of options 15/16 months ago - it would have had to have been a valid consideration, however unpalatable. In some respects, dealing with covid "as it emerged" must have been very much like the "trolley problem" - not a question of whether to cause/allow harm (no escaping that), but effectively choosing who gets how much harm.

And I'm darned glad I didn't have to make any of those decisions.

 

[JohnW2]

Back to the subject of NPI effectiveness, there's also the factor of how well they are observed. I'm sure were not alone in seeing large groups of people (mostly youths) hanging around together.

Indeed, and it's not just non-compliance. Even with the strictest of NPIs ("Stay at home", "don't go to work", "don't get within 2 metres of anyone" etc.), there are countless people (probably 'millions'), broadly described as 'essential workers', who are excluded from those requirements.

We have always attempted to take that into account in our modelling efforts. One can estimate (theoretically and/or empirically) the probable effect of a particular NPI if the entire population were 100% compliant, and we can estimate the proportion who will be compliant at a particular point in time (and there are constantly surveys being undertaken to get a handle on compliance). Obviously all very imperfect, but it at least has given us a means of doing some 'cautious' modelling.

One of our concerns is that what is happening on Monday is that it throws a spanner into the works of modelling. When there are 'rules', and an estimate of what proportion of people will comply with them, one can do as above. However, by 'passing the buck' to the people, the government will be creating a situation in which we haven't yet really got a clue as to who will be doing what next week. A lot of surveys (of 'behaviour') are planned for the next couple of weeks and beyond, in an attempt to get some sort of handle on what people are actually doing. Until that information becomes available, the only modelling of the effects of 'Freedom Day' can only be based on what are essentially 'blind guesses'.

So even if thibgs weren't officially relaxed next Monday, I can't help thinking that compliance was well on the wane anyway. .... And therein lies another factor that's probably impossible to quantify - if you keep a restriction in place too long then people (as a whole) start to lose respect.

Indeed - and that has been a concern all along. Even during the early part of the initial (March 2020) 'lockdown', fears were being expressed that if it went on for 'very long', compliance would rapidly decline.

That's understandable, and there's not an awful lot one can do about it (in a society like ours) However, Brits are such that if there are 'rules' (even without threats of legal enforcement), a substantial proportion will probably comply with them - so imposing, or removing, 'rules' is always likely to have an appreciable impact on behaviour (in the UK).

It's very difficult to predict how individual behaviour will change on Monday, not the least because there is a lot of 'reporting bias' in what we are currently hearing and reading - since the media (and general 'conversation') tends to major on those who are nervous (or worse) and hence unlikley to change their behaviour much. Indeed, in terms of my own social and 'contacts' circle, there seem to be few who seem inclined to 'relax their behaviour on Monday'. On the contrary, a good few of them are saying that, after Monday, they may then well 'think twice' about doing things that they are fairly comfortable doing (like going to shops, hospitality venues etc.) if they find that those places become crowded with people paying little/no attention to 'social distancing' (and, for what it's worth, not wearing masks). There way well be at least some who behaviour becomes more cautious after Monday! There appears to be, fairly understandably, a more conservative view (and intent as regards behaviour) on the part of the family/friends/colleagues of people who have died, or nearly died, of Covid infection.

In any event, probably the greatest changes on Monday are not related to individual decisions about personal behaviour but, rather, are the removal of legal restrictions with which there is currently necessarily almost 100% compliance - in terms of whether certain venues are 'allowed to open', numbers (if any) who can 'meet and mix' in various indoor environments ('hospitality', sporting/cultural venues etc.), and the restrictions (distancing/masks/whatever) that apply to that 'meeting and mixing'.

I imagine that it will be the end of the month before we start getting indications of (a) how people are behaving (which will facilitate some modelling) and (b) what impact the relaxations are having on 'the numbers'. I'm nervous, but have no choice but to be patient!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

The one thing I can say with complete certainty, and I suspect all of us are in agreement over this ... I'm glad it wasn't me having to make these decisions .... It's so easy to sit back and criticise with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge that TPTB simply didn't have back then. Whatever decisions they'd made would have been "obviously wrong" to some faction or other .... And I'm darned glad I didn't have to make any of those decisions.

Very much so. I have been saying that constantly almost since Day 1.

One thing which annoys me, even if inevitable, is that some people cannot resist the (any!) opportunity to make a party-political issue out of this. There have been next-to-impossible decisions/judgements to make, and undoubtedly many 'mistakes' (or, at least, sub-optimal decisions) have been made and, as you say, most of us should be very grateful that we weren't one of those having to make the decisions. I do what I can to assist some of those providing information that the government use in their decision-making, but am eternally grateful that I am not part of the actual decision-making process!!

However, the 'mistakes' (or 'sub-optimal decisions') were made by fallible individual human beings (or, more realistically, groups of fallible human beings), regardless of their political affiliation - and few, if any, of the decisions have been based much, if at all, on political ideologies. Indeed, it is hard to imagine than any party-in-power could have got more 'Socialist' than our current government have been in the past 18 months!

A good few of the people in my social circles and/or with who I interact are "very Left" in their political views, and they are constantly going on about the catastrophic decisions and mistakes being made by "The Conservative Government" (they never just call it "the government"!). In some senses, I almost wish that a Labour government was in power, hence a different set of "fallible individual human beings" making mistakes, since they I could mirror them by going on about the disastrous mistakes of "the Labour Government"

In fact, I'm a little surprised that we kept party-politics in the equation at all, rather than having a coalition government, as in wartime. Once Jeremy Corbin was removed from the equation, there was a rumour that the (new) leader of the Opposition (and maybe other Shadow Cabinet members) would be invited into the Cabinet for the duration of the pandemic, but also rumours that such an invitation was extended, but declined by Keir Starmer, because he felt that he could serve the cause better 'from Opposition'. Who knows!

Kind Regards, John

 

[Notch7]

This may sound a very silly question, but why is this in electrics?

Electricians can get Covid too

 

[JohnW2]

Electricians can get Covid too

They can, and I know one who did - but he was young and so, fortunately, survived the experience

However (and I think this is one thing that gets overlooked), although young (I think early 30s) he got pretty ill and took him a long time to fully recover, making him unable to work for at least a couple of months - which was a bit of a disaster for him as a self-employed person, even if he did 'remain alive'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Notch7]

With govt Covid decision making, the difficulty is separating what is led by science, what is led by maintaining ratings, what is led by the ERG / backbenchers and what is led by greed.

and all of that gives plenty of oxygen for conspiracy theories.


Look at test and trace, lighthouse labs, PPE etc.

these are all things which the govt have used emergency legislation to hide they way they’ve doled out loads of money to their mates.
Loads of Tory MPs have connections to private healthcare, it’s a cash cow.

 

[Notch7]

They can, and I know one who did - but he was young and so, fortunately, survived the experience

However (and I think this is one thing that gets overlooked), although young (I think early 30s) he got pretty ill and took him a long time to fully recover, making him unable to work for at least a couple of months - which was a bit of a disaster for him as a self-employed person, even if he did 'remain alive'.

Kind Regards, John

my niece works as a radiographer in NHS, she has spent lots of time doing scans on Covid patients in Covid wards. The damage to lungs is nasty and can be long lasting. She has 2 colleagues that have long term symptoms.

I know we all tend to look at graphs showing death rates etc…..but for me, long Covid is the biggest long term concern - and it’s often younger people.

 

[echoes]

This may sound a very silly question, but why is this in electrics?

At the end of this, on thread page 8854, we will see that this has all been necessary to show that over-current protective devices are there to protect the NHS.