Delay lockdown easing by a few weeks - scientist

[drfchound]

4182 cases 3 days ago, 3111 today.

Not so simple maths if those numbers represent doubling every 20 days.

[BillyStubbsTears]

4182 cases 3 days ago, 3111 today.

Jesus, it's like the last 15 months never happened.

You are quoting the figures released today which are the number of cases reported yesterday. Which was a Sunday.

The Monday release is ALWAYS the lowest if the week. Comparing Monday figures with Friday figures tells you nothing.

On top of that, there are inevitable peaks and troughs anyway, so even comparing Monday this week with Monday last week isn't necessarily helpful.

The simple way to deal with this is to look at how the seven day average evolves. It is currently increasing quite quickly. Not terrifyingly quickly, but the worry is that the rate of increase is going up quite sharply. If that actually IS happening then fully ending all legal requirements for social distancing is going to throw petrol on a smouldering fire. The new infections would increase very rapidly and while not many people would die (because most of the critically vulnerable have been jabbed) there would be a lot of intensive care cases among non-vaccinated younger people. So the concern now is that the NHS has the summer back in full on COVID crisis mode, and ordinary treatments get put off again.

[BillyStubbsTears]

New vaccine, new varients. Very handy.

You insist you're not a conspiracy theorist, but you see conspiracies in every argument.

[bpoolrover]

The number of cases is not always lower on a Monday or weekend it’s normally the deaths that are different

[ravenrover]

4182 cases 3 days ago, 3111 today.

Let's see the figures come Weds Thursday before we jump to any conclusions
I wonder if as the Govt says they follow the science whether the scientists are putting the boot in early ........ we told you so!

[drfchound]

The number of cases is not always lower on a Monday or weekend it’s normally the deaths that are different

So that is a different point of view bpool.

[River Don]

It might not necessarily be helpful but there are 944 more new cases compared with last Monday.

The hopeful news is hospital admissions are a bit lower compared with last week.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is, there isn't such a thing as a "point of view" about facts. Facts are facts. You don't change them by having different opinion about them.

Monday figures are in red in the graph below. With just one or two exceptions, the Monday figures are always around the lowest of any given consecutive 7 days.

Currently, regardless of BB and Hound's interpretations of simple numbers, new cases as a seven day average are doubling around every 20 days. That's not a disaster at the moment, but we are still having heavy social distancing at the moment. The danger is how that will take off if we cancel all social distancing in three weeks. Which is why we should all hope that we get on top of the current increase.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It might not necessarily be helpful but there are 944 more new cases compared with last Monday.

The hopeful news is hospital admissions are a bit lower compared with last week.

Precisely. That is roughly a 25% increase in a week. Which has been more or less the figure that you'd get for the past few days, if you take that day's numbers and compare them to the numbers 7 days before.

25% increase in a week is equivalent to just about a doubling every 3 weeks. Which broadly ties in with what I said about cases increasing at a rate commensurate with doubling every 20 days at the moment.

[drfchound]

Are we cancelling social distancing in three weeks though.
I have just had a few days away on the East coast and all the businesses there were very strict about keeping customers to the rules, seating arrangements and numbers in shops etc.
They all know that if they don’t continue to do that there is the risk of further lockdowns.
People have to learn how to behave and sadly there will always be those who don’t give a monkeys and do whatever they want, irrespective of whether the June 21st decision is changed or not.
After June 21st I think that sensible people and businesses will still insist on social distancing and the limiting of numbers of people allowed into restaurants and pubs etc.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound

I meant ending the legal imposition of social lockdown.

The model figures I saw earlier this weekend said that if the India variant really is 50% more transmissible than the Kent one, and we end the legal requirement for social distancing on 21 June, August will see a higher peak in intensive care cases than either last April or this January. And that would inevitably mean another hard lockdown this Summer.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The point being that the modelling takes into account the likelihood that some businesses would play things uber-cautious. But if a lot don't, the virus will still rip through the population very, very quickly.

[Nudga]

https://twitter.com/dontbetyet/status/1399485443050291204?s=19

My conspiracy.