Covid : Infection rates v death rates and a possible second wave

[trebor79]

For these reasons, I do really think we should really be comparing ourselves to other European countries that will have more similar cultures, climates and perhaps similar levels of cross immunity. This in mind it seems that almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave. Even Germany and Italy that a few weeks were lauded for apparently appearing to have the virus under control are now experiencing second waves.

<cough>Sweden<cough>

 

[adc82140]

<cough>Sweden<cough>

Is that a new continuous cough?

 

[packermac]

Danger of ending up? At this stage he should be on the book for mass criminally negligent manslaughter, crimes against humanity, genocide, take your pick. Not sure what else he has to do - Blair by contrast was just a simple war criminal

Not quite sure how you any of those crimes are applicable to any leader.
Belgium and Spain have higher deaths per 1M of the population and Italy and Sweden are not far behind the UK. So maybe you want to charge most of the world leaders then?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

<cough>Sweden<cough>

It's not quite as simple as that. Sweden is now experiencing an increase in cases.

Sweden: coronavirus new case numbers 2023 | Statista

On January 13, 2023, Sweden registered 715 new coronavirus cases.

www.statista.com

There was a story on the Mail Online that was suggesting that Stockholm and Uppsala were going to get stricter restrictions as those are the main locations experiencing the increase. That being said, it is the Mail Online and it's not usually a source that I'd regard has any greater empirical status so I'll wait for something more definitive either way!

 

[trebor79]

It's not quite as simple as that. Sweden is now experiencing an increase in cases.

It's still far below the numbers in spring, even with increased testing. It is the season for respiratory viruses too...

 

[jtuk]

Not quite sure how you any of those crimes are applicable to any leader.
Belgium and Spain have higher deaths per 1M of the population and Italy and Sweden are not far behind the UK. So maybe you want to charge most of the world leaders then?

I don't know how much other countries have taken measures that have closed their health services to anything other than a touch of Covid, which has directly resulted in tens of thousands of avoidable deaths, so I won't comment on other countries. I'll just talk about the UK.

Using the only country to have got the Covid/everything else balance correct in your post is pretty shocking

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

It's still far below the numbers in spring, even with increased testing. It is the season for respiratory viruses too...

That wasn't what you said.

Sweden is experiencing a second wave of Covid cases unfortunately though thankfully deaths remain low. The concern is that the figures are adopting a similar trajectory to other European countries.

In fairness, the stories on potential restrictions have been doing the rounds for a few weeks without any changes and so must be viewed in that light. It will be interesting to see if Sweden introduces stricter regulations in Stockholm and Uppsala and, if so, to what extent.

 

[DB]

Sweden is experiencing a second wave of Covid cases unfortunately though thankfully deaths remain low. The concern is that the figures are adopting a similar trajectory to other European countries.

It's the autumn - every country at a similar latitude is going to see an increase in all respiratory infections, as happens around this time every year.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

It's the autumn - every country at a similar latitude is going to see an increase in all respiratory infections, as happens around this time every year.

Yes, but the point was that when someone said " For these reasons, I do really think we should really be comparing ourselves to other European countries that will have more similar cultures, climates and perhaps similar levels of cross immunity. This in mind it seems that almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave. " then Sweden was mentioned as something different.

As you say, Sweden is the same as the other countries in many respects and is starting to follow the same trajectory.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, but the point was that when someone said " For these reasons, I do really think we should really be comparing ourselves to other European countries that will have more similar cultures, climates and perhaps similar levels of cross immunity. This in mind it seems that almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave. " then Sweden was mentioned as something different.

As you say, Sweden is the same as the other countries in many respects and is starting to follow the same trajectory.

The difference being that so far at any rate, Sweden has avoided a draconian lockdown. That it has, and is so far only now beginning to follow other countries on the expected seasonal trajectory of infections, already marks it out as being somewhat successful.

 

[Jozhua]

In view of the fact that any vaccine will not be offered to <50, many people not taking this seriously and have no concern about others, etc. I am reluctantly coming to the view that the best option is to shield the >60 and vulnerable and getting on with it, instead of completing trashing the economy.

It is a shame that other countries have controlled it successfully (e.g. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, an international business + aviation hub), and this country is just refusing to learn through bloody mindedness, superiority complex (thinking that no other country can do better than UK), misconception of "freedom", or whatever you call it.

Pretty sure all of these countries contained it without either as significant or as long lasting lockdowns, like the ones we see in Europe, The UK and certain US states.

There's a hell of a lot of factors that help countries to contain something like this. A lockdown is using a hammer to cut a cake. It can kinda work, but at best you're still ruining everything a bit.

I found this an interesting read:
https://elemental.medium.com/what-we-can-learn-from-south-koreas-coronavirus-response-97a4db5c9fef

The country learned tough lessons from the MERS pandemic, and it’s paying off now

I'd disagree we have a superiority complex, to some extent we have an inferiority complex. A lot of people felt we 'deserved' lockdown, because we're all dirty sinners who needed to be put down at some point. This inferiority complex also leads into a lack of vision for anything good, like high speed rail, good healthcare or education. Its why everything is falling apart and everything is miserable. Rather self fulfilling really. The UK is what a country would be like if it had depression.

<cough>Sweden<cough>

Is that a new continuous cough?

The difference being that so far at any rate, Sweden has avoided a draconian lockdown. That it has, and is so far only now beginning to follow other countries on the expected seasonal trajectory of infections, already marks it out as being somewhat successful.

True, it's almost like there's more to pandemic management than lockdowns...

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The difference being that so far at any rate, Sweden has avoided a draconian lockdown. That it has, and is so far only now beginning to follow other countries on the expected seasonal trajectory of infections, already marks it out as being somewhat successful.

Again, that wasn't what was being said. There was no mention of the level restrictions; it was about a comparison with other similar European countries and that "almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave." and the suggestion that Sweden is not. It clearly is following other European countries trajectory. How they will react in the light of that is a different question.

 

[Richard Scott]

Again, that wasn't what was being said. There was no mention of the level restrictions; it was about a comparison with other similar European countries and that "almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave." and the suggestion that Sweden is not. It clearly is following other European countries trajectory. How they will react in the light of that is a different question.

No-one is experiencing a second wave as the first one didn't go away. A wave is a full cycle, not had a full cycle yet.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

No-one is experiencing a second wave as the first one didn't go away. A wave is a full cycle, not had a full cycle yet.

If you look at the original post, that was someone else's terminology. Even if we accept that whether people say it's a second wave or a pulse within an existing cycle or whatever, Sweden is still experiencing rapidly increasing case numbers as with other European countries.

 

[Yew]

If you look at the original post, that was someone else's terminology. Even if we accept that whether people say it's a second wave or a pulse within an existing cycle or whatever, Sweden is still experiencing rapidly increasing case numbers as with other European countries.

So all of these measures and restrictions, damage to the economy, society and mental and physical health, for roughly the same trend as a country without most of that...

If you think that's a good deal, I've got a bridge to sell you.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

So all of these measures and restrictions, damage to the economy, society and mental and physical health, for roughly the same trend as a country without most of that...

If you think that's a good deal, I've got a bridge to sell you.

The original point was about the comparative figures. The other points were not mentioned by the OP (#1498), the Sweden mentioner (#1501) nor myself. Wind it in.

 

[yorksrob]

Again, that wasn't what was being said. There was no mention of the level restrictions; it was about a comparison with other similar European countries and that "almost every European country is now experiencing a second wave." and the suggestion that Sweden is not. It clearly is following other European countries trajectory. How they will react in the light of that is a different question.

It doesn't really matter what was said or not, Sweden is in a similar, if marginally better place without a lockdown than many similar countries that have had one, and that is the crux of the matter.

 

[Domh245]

South Korea is a democracy. Are you mixing it up with North?

A democracy it may be, but certainly not a liberal western one.

South Korea is reporting intimate details of COVID-19 cases: has it helped?

Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread, but some say publicizing people’s movements raises privacy concerns.

www.nature.com

South Korea is reporting intimate details of COVID-19 cases: has it helped?
Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread, but some say publicizing people’s movements raises privacy concerns.


For the past month, South Korean residents have been receiving flurries of emergency text messages from authorities, alerting them to the movements of local people with COVID-19. Epidemiologists say that detailed information about infected people’s movements is crucial for tracking and controlling the epidemic, but some question whether it’s useful to make those data public. Some say it could even be harmful.

The first cases in the country were reported in late January, and then surged a few weeks later. As case numbers grew, authorities launched a massive contact-tracing and testing regime to identify and then isolate infected people, even setting up drive-through testing centres. So far, the country has tested more people per capita than any country in the world — a total of nearly 300,000 people. As of 17 March, the country had reported 8,413 cases.

When a person tests positive, their city or district might send out an alert to people living nearby about their movements before being diagnosed. A typical alert can contain the infected person’s age and gender, and a detailed log of their movements down to the minute — in some cases traced using closed-circuit television and credit-card transactions, with the time and names of businesses they visited. In some districts, public information includes which rooms of a building the person was in, when they visited a toilet and whether or not they wore a mask. Even overnight stays at ‘love motels’ have been noted.

Other countries, including Singapore, have released data such as the age or gender of people with COVID-19, but nothing as detailed as in South Korea.

Public trust
The South Korean government says the public is more likely to trust it if it releases transparent and accurate information about the virus, including travel histories of confirmed patients. Laws passed since the country's last major disease outbreak, of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015, now specifically allow authorities to publish this information.

Numerous websites and smartphone apps have also sprung up to collect and map the data, such as coronamap.site. Checking the maps has become part of daily life for many South Koreans.

Experts and the World Health Organization say that South Korea’s extensive tracing, testing and isolation measures — along with campaigns encouraging people to avoid large gatherings — have helped to reduce the virus’s spread. Over the past two weeks, the number of new cases being reported each day in South Korea has dropped dramatically, from a peak of 909 cases announced on 29 February to 74 on 16 March.

But the specificity of the publicly available data has raised privacy concerns. The data trails released about some of the infected people have been so detailed that they could be identifiable, say some researchers and human-rights activists.

It might be useful for epidemiologists to “privately and securely have this information on hand, especially for contact tracing”, says Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts. But she says she’s not sure that publicizing such information is worth the risk of exposing people to the social stigma that might come if their community knows they are infected. The potential for stigma could even dissuade some infected people from coming forward to get tested, says Majumder.

Human-rights concerns
On 9 March, Choi Young-ae, chair of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, also expressed concern that the “excessive disclosure of private information” could cause people with symptoms to avoid testing.

In response, South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on 14 March that such detailed location information should be released only when epidemiological investigations could not otherwise identify all the people with whom an infected person had been in contact before their diagnosis.

The idea is that a person with mild symptoms can check the travel logs to see whether they might have come in contact with an infected person, which could help medical officials decide who should be screened, says Sung-il Cho, an epidemiologist at Seoul National University. He thinks authorities are justified in making location information public for this purpose.

But he says an unintended consequence has been that people are avoiding places that an infected person has visited, even though the places have been closed and cleaned since then.

Personal hygiene and social distancing are more important than looking up websites to avoid places that infected people have visited, says Oh Myoung-don, an infectious-disease physician at Seoul National University.

Legacy of infection
South Korea’s data transparency during this outbreak has its origins in how the government handled the 2015 outbreak of MERS, which reportedly infected 186 people in South Korea and killed 36. The government at the time initially refused to identify the hospitals in which infected people were being treated, but a software programmer made a map of cases based on crowdsourced reports and anonymous tips from hospital staff. Eventually, the government relented and named the affected hospitals.

The public broadly supports the government publishing individuals’ movement, says Youngkee Ju, a researcher in health journalism at Hallym University in Chuncheon. In 1,000-person surveys that he co-authored, published in February and earlier this month, most respondents supported the government sharing travel details of people with COVID-19. Furthermore, most “preferred the public good to individual rights”, says Ju. He and his colleagues intend to perform a follow-up survey to find out exactly how much personal information the public supports disclosing.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

It doesn't really matter what was said or not, Sweden is in a similar, if marginally better place without a lockdown than many similar countries that have had one, and that is the crux of the matter.

Sorry but that wasn't what the posts concerned say. The clear assertion was that Sweden was not experiencing an increase unlike other European countries. That was the only point that was being addressed.

 

[cactustwirly]

That wasn't what you said.

Sweden is experiencing a second wave of Covid cases unfortunately though thankfully deaths remain low. The concern is that the figures are adopting a similar trajectory to other European countries.

In fairness, the stories on potential restrictions have been doing the rounds for a few weeks without any changes and so must be viewed in that light. It will be interesting to see if Sweden introduces stricter regulations in Stockholm and Uppsala and, if so, to what extent.

The rise is probably because respiratory viruses become more active in the colder temperatures of Autumn and Winter. This is well known, and happens every year with colds and flus.
The rise in cases is much lower than the rest of Europe, because of the increased amount of herd immunity present.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd disagree we have a superiority complex, to some extent we have an inferiority complex. A lot of people felt we 'deserved' lockdown, because we're all dirty sinners who needed to be put down at some point. This inferiority complex also leads into a lack of vision for anything good, like high speed rail, good healthcare or education. Its why everything is falling apart and everything is miserable. Rather self fulfilling really. The UK is what a country would be like if it had depression.

If that's how you really feel, as in you can see nothing good at all in the UK, then you probably want to talk to someone about depression yourself; it's really not how things are.

The present Government are rubbish, but the Government don't define the country.

A democracy it may be, but certainly not a liberal western one.

South Korea is reporting intimate details of COVID-19 cases: has it helped?

Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread, but some say publicizing people’s movements raises privacy concerns.

www.nature.com

All I'll say to that is "wow, they know how to do contact tracing".

I wouldn't be publishing it, but for contact tracing to work it does have to be that invasive. Small wonder they're doing better than we are.

Proper contact tracing is like private investigation, not a "phone a friend service" like our joke of a system.

 

[cactustwirly]

In terms of a second wave peak, it appears we are at it now. I think at most we will see 200-250 deaths per day from Coronavirus in the next month or so.

There will probably be quite a major peak after Christmas and I will be suprised if hospitals don't begin to quite heavily lean on the Nightingales to cope with demand. There is already a peak in deaths post Christmas due to family & friends passing germs to the old and frail and seeing A&E departments getting completely swamped is not uncommon. Coronavirus will probably worsen this, so the nightingales will be very useful. In fact, maybe we should have more hospital beds in general...

Heard rumours on the vaccine front of things getting a little tricky. Summer 2021 seems likely to be the earliest.

This winter will be the true test of how bad Coronavirus can get. People tired of endless restrictions, cold weather getting people to socialise indoors, etc.

I think any prospect of a "circuit breaker" lockdown is ill conceived, a circuit break implies you are stopping something, which it will not. Perhaps you could call it a "Increased circuit resistance" lockdown, but maybe that's less catchy. The end result is the same though, as soon as you take that resistive load off, cases will increase. Except now you'll be deeper into flu season when it happens.

To save lives this winter we should:
Rollout of the flu Vaccine is more important than ever, especially to stop infections compounding.

Be very careful when meeting elderly/vulnerable relatives, try and keep it outdoors, or wear a mask inside. Get some blankets out if need be!

Keep washing hands frequently, sanitising when this is not possible.

Try to avoid an absolutely mad Christmas shopping rush, maybe do shopping during the week. Stores should extend opening hours and make sure to not let maximum capacity standards slip.

To save lives this winter we should not:
Lockdown and push more people into isolation, depression and poverty, especially when this coincides with bad weather and long nights.

Treat people like children - they will rebel, eventually!

Send out mixed, confused and frustrating messaging.


Sounds about right, yes.

And that number is based on what exactly? Or is it just a guess?
The ICU capacity in Manchester is actually below the 5 year average for this time of year, so I don't understand how they will suddenly become swamped?

I support the rollout of the flu vaccine to the old and vunerable, but not everyone else.
The rise of flu could be advantageous to stop the rise of covid, because of Natural Selection, it will make it harder for covid to infect hosts if it has to compete with influenza.

 

[yorkie]

I am reluctantly coming to the view that the best option is to shield the >60 and vulnerable and getting on with it, instead of completing trashing the economy.

There is a lot to be said for that approach

It is a shame that other countries have controlled it successfully (e.g. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, an international business + aviation hub), and this country is just refusing to learn through bloody mindedness, superiority complex (thinking that no other country can do better than UK), misconception of "freedom", or whatever you call it.

There's a huge list of countries who are not "successful" as you put it, but how could they ever be?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The rise is probably because respiratory viruses become more active in the colder temperatures of Autumn and Winter. This is well known, and happens every year with colds and flus.
The rise in cases is much lower than the rest of Europe, because of the increased amount of herd immunity present.

At the risk of repeating myself, my comment was simply to say that a statement that Sweden was not experiencing a substantial increase in Covid cases (unlike the rest of Europe) is mistaken.

 

[Domh245]

All I'll say to that is "wow, they know how to do contact tracing".

I wouldn't be publishing it, but for contact tracing to work it does have to be that invasive. Small wonder they're doing better than we are.

Proper contact tracing is like private investigation, not a "phone a friend service" like our joke of a system.

I'd much rather the less effective contract tracing we have than further entertaining this slide into authoritarianism

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd much rather the less effective contract tracing we have than further entertaining this slide into authoritarianism

Though to look at it the other way, if we did contact tracing that well we might not need half of the other stuff.

 

[Domh245]

Though to look at it the other way, if we did contact tracing that well we might not need half of the other stuff.

"All you have to do to undo some of the authoritarian things we've done is accept something even more authoritarian" - that's gonna be a tough sell

 

[Jozhua]

If that's how you really feel, as in you can see nothing good at all in the UK, then you probably want to talk to someone about depression yourself; it's really not how things are.

The present Government are rubbish, but the Government don't define the country.

As a 20Y/O, the situation feels incredibly hopeless. I can't remember a time when the economy wasn't in a desperate state, when jobs were secure, etc. We had 2008, austerity, then Brexit (which I couldn't vote in), more Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, now Coronavirus.

Honestly, I feel the issue is ingrained in society, our media as well as our politics. Things that other countries have are seen as "not possible", and there is virtually no willingness to invest in the future. We only want to invest when a project offers some amazing step-change in value, that almost sounds too good to be true.

This leads a population that runs to snake oil and fails to invest in the in-perfect, but good solutions that exist. This is how you end up with Brexit. Don't get me wrong, I don't see the EU with rose tinted goggles, the single market and free movement is good, but a lot of the policies are pretty poor, especially around rail. The Eurozone is mixed, seems fine for Germany, but a disaster for Greece. Frankly it is too big and spans too many different economies.

Other snake oil is scrap HS2 and replace it with hyperloop. We don't need buses because autonomous cars. We don't need trams because Elon Musk loop.

Though to look at it the other way, if we did contact tracing that well we might not need half of the other stuff.

True, my main concern with track and trace app right now is that it'll literally tell me to isolate every week because of the amount of covid out there. I guess track and trace kinda breaks down once too many people get it.

It isn't like they don't collect this data anyway. Except now it can perhaps be used for something useful.

"All you have to do to undo some of the authoritarian things we've done is accept something even more authoritarian" - that's gonna be a tough sell

Eh, I'd say fining people for seeing friends is about as authoritarian as it gets.

A better way about this would be giving people complete freedom, then telling them when they are at risk of spreading and need to isolate and paying them fully for their time off.

Contact tracing should be helping you to trace contacts beyond what you could do anyway on text message.

 

[43066]

As a 20Y/O, the situation feels incredibly hopeless. I can't remember a time when the economy wasn't in a desperate state, when jobs were secure, etc. We had 2008, austerity, then Brexit (which I couldn't vote in), more Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, now Coronavirus.

Yes, it’s fair to say it’s cataclysmic at least in the short term. But at least at 20 you have time to weather it.

It might not seem like it but the economy has been in a reasonable state for the last few years. Economic growth wasn’t stellar, but we had low unemployment, low interest rates, low inflation, some house price growth etc.

Just below your age I was starting uni in 2001, and things seemed pretty bleak then, but were a little better when I graduated in ‘04. I was then working during 2008/9. That felt like the world was ending, at the time, and I had a period of unemployment (admittedly working in the financial services sector at the time perhaps made it seem worse than it was for many).

Unfortunately Covid is way, way worse than both of the above combined, and isn’t really comparable to anything within living memory for most of us. I can’t remember anything like it, and neither can my parents, who can remember 1970s, the winter of discontent etc. Covid is more akin to a WW2 type event.

This leads a population that runs to snake oil and fails to invest in the in-perfect, but good solutions that exist. This is how you end up with Brexit. Don't get me wrong, I don't see the EU with rose tinted goggles, the single market and free movement is good, but a lot of the policies are pretty poor, especially around rail. The Eurozone is mixed, seems fine for Germany, but a disaster for Greece. Frankly it is too big and spans too many different economies.

I’m afraid snake oil salesman (ie politicians) are what has led the EU to develop into a bloated bureaucracy, trying to shoehorn a number of culturally, politically and economically incompatible states into a superstate, in order to feed a vanity project. That strategy clearly hasn’t worked. But, this is off topic, so I’ll leave it there!

Eh, I'd say fining people for seeing friends is about as authoritarian as it gets.

I suspect the overall point that poster was making is that we are basically damned either way.

I suppose unenforceable, arbitrary rules restricting us from meeting friends and family could be argued to be less authoritarian and dystopian than insistence on constantly producing contact details to faceless jobsworths’ “papers please” style.

 

[yorksrob]

I'd disagree we have a superiority complex, to some extent we have an inferiority complex. A lot of people felt we 'deserved' lockdown, because we're all dirty sinners who needed to be put down at some point. This inferiority complex also leads into a lack of vision for anything good, like high speed rail, good healthcare or education. Its why everything is falling apart and everything is miserable. Rather self fulfilling really. The UK is what a country would be like if it had depression.

I think that this country does have a cultural cringe in many respects. I've always been of the view that we should try and emulate more economically stable social democratic countries to counter the Thatcherite market ethos that has led to many of the problems you describe. I certainly don't subscribe to the view espoused by some that we should be gazing admiringly at authoritarian dictatorships, particularly given that this current crisis appears most likely to have been caused by poor food production standards in one of them.

I suppose unenforceable, arbitrary rules restricting us from meeting friends and family could be argued to be less authoritarian and dystopian than insistence on constantly producing contact details to faceless jobsworths’ “papers please” style.

Really !

That's a very bizarre way of looking at it in my view. I don't comprehend how leaving a contact detail is somehow more draconian than potentially being fined for daring to meet a friend in the pub.

Anyhow, I'm sure Hancock will be along to strong-arm us into tier three soon enough. Whatever happenned to politicians resigning to "spend more time with their families".

As for SAGE, they might as well replace them with a looped cassette tape repeating the word "lockdown" continually. It would be cheaper.