As the FT reports this morning:
The ... React-1 study led by Imperial College London concluded that prevalence of the [Covid] virus was “very high with no evidence of decline”. The finding was based on the analysis of 142,900 nose and throat swabs from a representative sample of the English population between January 6 and 15.
I happened to be one of those 142,900. My test was negative, which was no great surprise to me.
The result is worrying though. If there is no evidence of a decline in the R rate then there is no case for releasing lockdown and every reason to consider extending it.
The question remains as to why schools are open? Their being so remains the most likely reason for this failure to suppress the virus, which if it stays as it is has many tens of thousands more people to kill in the UK before this sorry event is over, with the government having by then succeeded in its aim of creating herd immunity by letting the vulnerable die. That was what Cummings thought should be done. And that is what is still happening.
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Can we please have English infection and death rates stated in the media. We already have had them for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from the beginning but never for England. Is there something to hide here?
Perhaps they are just trying to improve everyone’s mental arithmetic.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
This is easier to navigate, although the data is from the above source: https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/
The reason the schools are still open is that there is no adequate or affordable child care or any sort of financial support for child minding for essential or key workers many of whom are very poorly paid. As the Tories are obsessed with the country “getting back to work” rather than face honestly the pandemic crisis, they are forced into this ridiculous situation.
I saw that React-1 story this morning and was confused by the conclusions drawn.
The daily case figures (cover the UK, but dominated by England which is what the React team survey) show numbers peaking on 9-10 January and then declining. So a survey collecting data for 6-15 Jan is sampling the peak and each side of it – you would expect it to be higher than a previous survey, and also than the next one assuming the trend continues.
Obvious the random sampling by React-1 will give more reliable numbers for infection prevalence, but daily tests are high enough now that the trends should be the same. R should be less than 1 now – that is what a decline in case numbers means – and from the limited data the decline looks similar to that at the end of November and in line with the decline in deaths during May (as a delayed proxy for case numbers which were poorly sampled at that point). At those points the R was reported as 0.7.
Almost no one is reporting R is less than 1 that I have seen
It seems to be accepted it is falling, but not yet maybe to 1
And even getting to 1 leaves us with well over 1,000 deaths a day and the NHS remaining beyond breaking point – people cannot keep going at this rate
I certainly wasn’t intending to be complacent and suggest everything is rosy! Hospitalisations and deaths need to be very much lower.
However decreasing case numbers does imply R<1. Formal measurement can only be done retrospectively so won't have caught up with the latest data. However the modellers extrapolate forwards, and a week ago indicated R was probably below 1 in many areas (https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/ – at the moment the data is calculated for 14 Jan but may get automatically updated when they do the next modelling run).
Let’s see…..
The C-19 Symptom Reporting App run by ZOE and KCL has 4.5m contributors. It produces daily reports for the government in near real time of people reporting symptoms on a daily basis. A copy of today’s report is here https://covid-assets.joinzoe.com/latest/covid_symptom_study_report.pdf
A sneak preview, it shows R is less than 1 in all UK regions. The methodology has been running since March and has been shown in papers in Nature to produce results coterminous with testing data which lags it by 10 days.
I assumed that everyone contributing here with a social conscience would be supporting this study.
The app is widely considered to be profoundly unreliable
Who has the time to upload symptoms daily?
Shall we assume they are the worried well, working from home?
In which case of course their R may be less than one. But that does not suggest it is in the population as a whole.
“The app is widely considered to be unreliable” Thats not what this months Lancet says.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30269-3/fulltext
Do you have evidence to back up your claim? Anyone who has two minutes to spare can support this valuable research. I am genuinely surprised at you rubbishing it and the contributions of 4.5 million people.
Feel free to believe it
My concern is a classic one: however big, self selected sample bases are not representative
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk
As I thought
Daily update from ZOE covid symptom tracker:
https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-cases-halved-in-two-weeks
“The COVID Symptom Study app is a not-for-profit initiative that was launched at the end of March 2020 to support vital COVID-19 research. The app was launched by health science company ZOE with scientific analysis provided by King’s College London. With over 4 million contributors globally, the Study is the world’s largest ongoing study of COVID-19 and is led by ZOE Co-Founder, Tim Spector”
They sell diets as far as I am aware
On the Zoe app. I have been downloading their reports since early September with the intention of comparing their time series with the weekly ONS series that lags several weeks. But haven’t got around to it yet. Ho hum. Maybe this thread will push me into doing it.
There is a correlation
But no one but them seems to think R is below 1 right now
Reducing, yes
Below 1, I actually doubt
But lets see
Herd immunity is a property of sufficient population vaccination before the virus mutates to evade the vaccine. The way this virus evolves, and the lack of demonstrated long term immunity through infection for any coronavirus, means that the only way to develop sufficient population immunity through infection would be by arranging that everyone get infected as fast as possible. That wouldn’t just destroy the NHS, it would overwhelm crematoria, undertakers, etc, and leave several generations of long-term debility which would drag in the economy worse than Brexit. It’s a complete fantasy. Even this government won’t go there, yet another target missed. In this case, be glad!
We have to be aware that Herd Immunity may never be achieved. There are no comprehensive data showing that immunity acquired through infection is long-lasting and we have seen that Covid can mutate to a significantly more infectious strain with great speed, so we could be playing catchup for some time to come. There are too many unpredictable factors at this stage to draw any firm conclusions, which is why the scientists show little or no support for Herd Immunity as a tactic in controlling the pandemic
Agreed
Including the fact that any sort of immunity may take a long time, which is why suppression is the only answer
I could highly recommend travelling tabby for a clear and informative presentation of COVID related data. I believe it was created by a cat loving 25 year old student from Dunoon. I think it puts UK,s presentations to shame.
https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/
Gosh, that is extraordinarily good. https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/ The government should employ this person immediately.
Don’t be stupid. Why would the English govt employ experts, or anyone who is good at their job. This govt has collected the biggest load of ambitious, but talentless, morons in history. They easily rival the Out-gone Trump admin .
Herd immunity, even if it kills all of us plebs, is the goal..
I think that was offered in good humour
As far as I can tell the information is taken from the UK Dashboard (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk) and is presented for Scotland alone. It’s a good presentation but I don’t see how it puts other presentations to shame as it is all there on the dashboard.
Actually @travellingtabby.com presents coronavirus information for England too. Just click on the red white & blue icon denoting non-Scottish results & all will be revealed. It started as a purely Scottish page but then expanded to incorporate England as precise information became hard to find & rely on. John’s sources of info are listed at the bottom of each page so you can check their validity.
Every pandemic has a silver lining [govt motto]
“Coronavirus pandemic to cut £100bn off pension costs: Lower lifespans lead to big savings for final salary schemes”
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8557599/Coronavirus-pandemic-cut-100bn-pension-costs.html
Wow….
And actuaries are usually pretty hard nosed
I’m sure Cummings had that factored into his calculations, just as I’m sure the UK Gov’t Pension administration team routinely make such calculations.
What is killing us seems to be impatience to get back to normal.
When Boris talks of a better Spring – it’s pure speculation. Does the virus listen and conform – let alone people?
I was watching a programme on the virus last night and I did not know that they allowed Mardi Gras to happen in New Orleans 2020 in the U.S. to go ahead. It was seen as a ‘super spreader’ event.
As a result, Louisiana had one of the highest infection rates in the world.
My worry is that it only needs to be a dip in the figures and Boris’ administration relax too much too soon.
It’s fatal.