COVID cases on the brink of breaking 100k a day (Zoe Covid Study)

Thanks for the link Pippa. It shows the ONS finds consistently higher Covid figures than those quoted by the Government. Current ONS figures are 93,000 cases per day. Tim Spector says the Government will only introduce mandatory restrictions if cases reach 100,000. People appear not to be getting tested or reporting. A friend tested positive with a lateral flow recently, but failed to report this officially. This must be happening a lot country wide.

There were 915 hospitalisations yesterday, up 15% in a week. 10% of hospitals full of Covid cases is not an efficient way for the NHS to run.

We now have few restrictions, waning immunity, a slowing vaccination programme and we’re heading into winter.

Although 1m people a week are getting vaccinated, 2m have now become eligible, so it looks very likely the NHS will struggle to cope with boosters.

Todays figures approximately 6,000 less than last Friday.

I was under the distinct impression that infection rates were falling and there's been a daily reduction all week.

PS it’s been raining all week, which may be another contributory factor, it’s too horrible to go out and mix.

Wales has reported a decrease in cases for the third consecutive day today, which is good news. Maybe because it’s half term. Our rates have been the highest in the UK for the last couple of weeks, but we largely avoided the summer peak so it was later here than elsewhere in the UK.

I've seen the "died with covid" argument so many times. The structure of such an argument is very obviously flawed if you know anything about statistics.

"With Covid" is simply a method of gathering statistics that shows trends. They could use "excess deaths" - another way of finding trends. That would give you a figure that is just about twice the number of deaths to those in the "with Covid" on the death certificate sample.

Both Zoe and the Government statistics provide estimated prevalence and incidence rates. Prevalence is the total number of estimated cases at any given time, whereas incidence is the estimated number of daily new cases. The Government also provides the total number of lab-confirmed cases each day. Zoe also does a symptom study.

If I remember rightly, Zoe picked up on the downward trend before the Government statistics did. In each case, one will be better than the other at some things. Isn't it good that we have both?

Just because you want one particular outcome to be right doesn't make it so. There are two good surveys. We need to look at them both.

Wales has reported a rise in the Delta variant by the way. I will wait for the scientists to tell me what that means.

Thanks Pippa. That was really interesting especially after listening to the interview with him the other day. Can anyone explain to me why we aren’t being told about the latest covid symptoms?

The ONS survey estimated 1.5m people in England were Covid positive last week, 1 in 50. My guess is that a lot of people with mild symptoms aren’t bothering to get tested.

Yesterday’s figures were 13,000 less than last Thursday, looks like numbers are going down not up.

Yesterday, the reported figure for new cases in the UK was under 40,000 and the most recent trend is downwards.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

Deaths with COVID-19 in England over recent weeks have been broadly stable under 800 and under half of one percent of new cases 4 weeks previously. This is a very low percentage. Note also that many of the people who died with COVID-19 did not die of COVID-19.

We can and should do all we can to protect ourselves but we should not exaggerate the risks. It is important for our economic and mental well-being that we lead as normal lives as we can.