The Lemon Fool

UncleEbenezer wrote:GPS location and time information might be no bad thing: help you make a judgement of risk (e.g. outdoor vs indoor encounter). It would certainly help credibility if it identified somewhere I really had been at the time claimed.

And a framework for matching contacts where both parties exchange information, for the scenario "was it Tom, Dick or Harry"? The message to you contains a token that (if you ask) matches with any of their keys, but (respecting privacy) reveals the match to you if and only if your match opts to allow it.

I'm sure Dominic's wishlist started off like that, and where did that get them?

Scott.

UncleEbenezer wrote:GPS location and time information might be no bad thing: help you make a judgement of risk (e.g. outdoor vs indoor encounter). It would certainly help credibility if it identified somewhere I really had been at the time claimed.

In any case it's not an option using the Google Exposure Notifications System. It specifically doesn't use, save or share the device location, such as GPS.

Scott.

I have been looking at the data extracted from the Government Covid-19 data site (which sometimes works – as I have described previously!). I have compared the sum of daily cases in the first seven days of August with the sum of daily cases in the first seven days of September to see how significant (or otherwise) the currently reported rises may be. I also checked the UK Tests processed, and estimated that the number of Pillar 1 & 2 Tests had increased by 23% in the month between these two weeks.

For England, the number of Covid-19 Cases increased from 5297 to 12037 – a factor of 2.27
For Scotland it increased from 263 to 1065 – a factor of 4.05
For London region it increased from 663 to 2167 – a factor of 3.27

So my first observation is that these are real rises – only slightly affected by the increase in testing.
And it looks like the increases in London are significantly higher than the English average.

Since the Scottish Population is approximately one tenth of the English population, it appears that the number of Scottish per capita Covid-19 daily cases was approximately one half of the English number at the beginning of August – but by the beginning of September the gap had closed significantly.

I think it is clear that serious infections have increased since August. This is not surprising as although the lockdown did not prevent the peak of deaths it did accelerate the reduction in death rate. The government have reported a substantial increase in hospital admissions (to 136), which is now available on the published site.

It remains to be seen whether this is simply the expected number of bad cases that resulted from the effect of the lockdown or a proper second wave. My personal expectation is that we won't see much of this in London. I think the North West has areas which are potentially prone to further infection, but I would expect not that much in the big urban areas. The published figures are only at a regional level.

So far, however, the increases in hospital admissions have not shown an exponential curve on a national basis.

There is an alternative cause in that the lower temperatures are making the virus more serious. I am, however, not sure that the summer was that hot and the weather is not yet that cold.

johnhemming wrote:I think it is clear that serious infections have increased during and since August.

FTFY. As I predicted back in late July, when they made wearing of germ-incubators compulsory and their widespread distribution (aka careless disposal) inevitable.

Pleased to see we now have figures derived from population sampling. Altogether more meaningful than government stats whose basis is driven more by the ever-changing test and reporting regime than by the lurgy itself.

UncleEbenezer wrote: As I predicted back in late July, when they made wearing of germ-incubators compulsory and their widespread distribution (aka careless disposal) inevitable.

Always trade offs with opposing policies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54057799

The difficulty is always the selection of a random sample of tests. That is why I prefer the admissions figures.

johnhemming wrote:The difficulty is always the selection of a random sample of tests. That is why I prefer the admissions figures.

Admissions figures are a poor indication of the growing infection rate. The severity of the infection is strongly age dependent, and the majority of new infections is currently heavily biased to the younger age groups who are unlikely to require hospital treatment. They are also timed lagged - and with Covid-19 the last thing we want is a delay in taking action. Currently the admissions data is only available on a nationwide basis.
As listed in my previous note, the Cases number is increasing dramatically, even in areas which experienced the highest infection rates in Spring - e.g. London. So we can forget about herd immunity - from any source. Lockdown worked, but its current easement (whether intentional or not) has increased the reproduction rate above unity. And that means growth.

scotia wrote:Admissions figures are a poor indication of the growing infection rate.

That might be true, but they are probably a better indicator of likely fatality numbers. So, it depends on what you deem important to measure.

Rising "cases" might in fact be a good measure, and predictor of lower overall deaths, and a speedier "end" to the pandemic. As you point out it depends on who those cases consist of.

One of the best outcomes would be if everyone that won't be medically affected by it were to catch it at the earliest opportunity, spreading amongst themselves, whilst everyone who would suffer medically was kept safe and isolated. Clearly difficult to achieve in practice (or for any politician to claim as an aim). A slow spread that ultimately gets to all the vulnerable, particularly during the regular flu season when immune systems might be naturally low, could be a worse outcome.

That's before even considering what the preferred outcome would be economically, and importantly all the other "non-Covid" medical problems society is suffering from as a result of the priorities given to Covid health.

scotia wrote:They are also timed lagged - and with Covid-19 the last thing we want is a delay in taking action. Currently the admissions data is only available on a nationwide basis.

The government have the figures available on a per hospital basis and it is published by regions and nation. The delay is quite similar to the delay on tests anyway. (as people test positive for a period of time).

Headline in the Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -plan.html

Up to 4.5million most at risk from Covid 'will be told to stay home under new shielding plan based on health, age and weight'

Whilst GP practices know age and broadly health, or that part of health requiring past consultations, I don't believe they collect weight, at lest not on a systematic and regular basis.

They don't even check blood pressure or cholesterol levels until there is a problem, if then . Why don't we get an MOT once in a while?

When new lockdown measures are introduced, the Beeb keep quoting the number of cases. If that were the only issue, the solution is as Trump said, do less testing !

V8

88V8 wrote:When new lockdown measures are introduced, the Beeb keep quoting the number of cases. If that were the only issue, the solution is as Trump said, do less testing !

V8

As I understand it "cases" means positive test results. But are they "cases"? Are they not people who have tested positive for having, or perhaps having had, Covid-19 rather than people who are ill with it?

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

88V8 wrote:When new lockdown measures are introduced, the Beeb keep quoting the number of cases. If that were the only issue, the solution is as Trump said, do less testing !

V8

As I understand it "cases" means positive test results. But are they "cases"? Are they not people who have tested positive for having, or perhaps having had, Covid-19 rather than people who are ill with it?

TJH

I thought "cases" referred to those with the Covid19 disease i.e. symptoms of disease. Many people will test positive, but who will not have the disease either because they are asymptomatic, or because their test has been one of the many false positives, reckoned to be anything up to 1% of all tests. Hence the major difference and confusion over case fatality rate, andinfection fertility rate.

tjh290633 wrote:

88V8 wrote:When new lockdown measures are introduced, the Beeb keep quoting the number of cases. If that were the only issue, the solution is as Trump said, do less testing !

V8

As I understand it "cases" means positive test results. But are they "cases"? Are they not people who have tested positive for having, or perhaps having had, Covid-19 rather than people who are ill with it?

TJH

No they are not.

Dr Kendrick had a long and fascinating rant about the difference the other day, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

88V8 wrote:When new lockdown measures are introduced, the Beeb keep quoting the number of cases. If that were the only issue, the solution is as Trump said, do less testing !

V8

We know government stats are driven by the constantly-changing testing regime, and indeed classification criteria.

That doesn't apply to population sampling, like the Imperial College work showing a steep rise starting in August. I think it's already been posted here, but in case it hasn't, https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/203873/ ... ows-cases/ . And in another thread, someone posted today about an Oxford repeat-testing study.

Mike4 wrote:Dr Kendrick had a long and fascinating rant about the difference the other day, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

Thank you for that link, which should be compulsory reading.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Dr Kendrick had a long and fascinating rant about the difference the other day, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

Thank you for that link, which should be compulsory reading.

TJH

You're welcome. His latest missive should also be compulsory reading, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/1 ... 9-for-now/

Mike4 wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Dr Kendrick had a long and fascinating rant about the difference the other day, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

Thank you for that link, which should be compulsory reading.

TJH

You're welcome. His latest missive should also be compulsory reading, here:

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/1 ... 9-for-now/

While it makes some fair points, that one also contains such innumerate nonsense as to discredit it. I stopped reading.

He's arguing, as others have done over the months, for herd immunity. So far as it goes, that has merit, though the argument would've had more merit in March than after we've already trashed the economy and so many lives. But the end game of herd immunity isn't that it goes away (his exponentially-rising figures make the identical mistake to the supposition that a Ponzi scheme can go on forever, and though he caveats it he appears to regard the caveat as insignificant), it's that it becomes a background illness - just another common cold, that happens to be particularly nasty in some cases.

Sure, we'll get there, and the basic argument (maximise herd immunity amongst those to whom it's no threat) makes sense twice over: it reduces the risk to the vulnerable, and it lets the non-vulnerable get on with life. But we were saying that back in March. I recollect on a personal level saying (possibly including here on lemonfool) I'd rather catch it now than when I'm older and correspondingly more vulnerable.