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Lockdown easing: Four numbers to look for ahead of the 21 June decision
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Michael Ejercito
Jun 10, 2021, 9:09:11 AM6/10/21
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https://www.bbc.com/news/57403888
Lockdown easing: Four numbers to look for ahead of the 21 June decision
By Robert Cuffe
Head of statistics
Published1 day ago
Share
Related Topics
Coronavirus pandemic
People sitting outside restaurants in Stevenson Square in Manchester
IMAGE COPYRIGHTPA MEDIA
The UK government faces a difficult choice in the next few days.
Many people are desperate to see the return to normality promised by the
final stage of the roadmap to lifting lockdown.
But ministers always said 21 June was not set in stone - and could be
affected by changes in the pandemic, including the emergence of new
variants.
What will they be weighing up as they make their final decision?
Here are four key numbers to watch out for in the coming days.
1. The number of people in hospital
There are just under 1,000 people with coronavirus in hospitals in the
UK, up about 5% from a low point a week ago.
That's far below the peak of nearly 40,000 people in January. And NHS
Providers say the people who are going in aren't as seriously ill as
they were in early waves. They are younger, or don't require intensive
care as much - and they're coming out sooner.
That means this wave is different, and better, than previous ones but
eventually rising admissions will mount up.
In the two parts of the UK that are furthest into this "third wave", the
North West of England and Scotland, the number of people in hospital
with coronavirus is rising faster than the rest of the UK.
Chart showing rising numbers of people in hospital in Scotland and the
North West of England
How far and how fast this trend develops depends on how fast infections
are rising and how likely you are to get seriously sick with the new
variant.
2. The speed of rising infections
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Parliament on Tuesday that the main
type of coronavirus in the UK - the Delta variant first identified in
India - is "at least 40%" more transmissible than the version that
sparked the winter wave - the Alpha variant first seen in Kent.
And as Delta takes over, infections are on the rise again.
Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested that UK
infections had risen by 60% in a single week.
A chart showing the path of infection numbers through the pandemic and
recent rises
If that growth rate remains steady or picks up, it suggests that cases
will rise pretty quickly if and when society reopens further.
We'll learn more on Friday.
But rising infections on their own aren't a reason to extend lockdown.
The government's key test is whether rising infections "risk a surge in
hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS".
And that also depends on your chances of getting seriously ill if you
catch coronavirus.
When could social distancing end?
3. The chance of becoming seriously ill if infected
That is much harder to predict now than it was in the first or second
waves, when scientists could predict what proportion of cases would need
treatment.
That's because vaccines do reduce your chance of getting really sick if
you do get infected with any variant.
Already we can see that while people who have been double jabbed make up
more than 40% of the population, they make up fewer than 5% of people
who have been admitted to hospital with the Delta variant.
But it does look like it takes two doses before someone gets high levels
of protection from that variant.
So there's a race on: double-jab as many people as possible, before the
virus spreads enough to find the vulnerable or to put pressure on the NHS.
Chart shows daily doses of vaccine with focus now on second dose
4. The number of people who have been fully vaccinated
More than 50% of adults have been given the best protection possible -
two doses of the vaccine. That's still a way off herd immunity, even if
you add in people who have some immunity from having had coronavirus in
the past.
Say each infected person would, on average, pass the virus on to six
other people in a fully open society that hadn't seen the virus before.
Then five out of six people, not just five out of six adults, would need
to be able to fight off the virus - that would be the "herd immunity
threshold".
We're not there yet, and it's possible that the threshold is higher as
Delta could be more infectious than imagined in this example.
But every person vaccinated helps to slow the spread.
How many people have been vaccinated so far?
Predicting the future
To predict what rising infections will mean for the NHS, you need to
know how fast cases will rise and how many cases will get really sick.
We don't know either figure precisely, and probably won't by 14 June.
And a rough estimate doesn't help. The last time UK government modellers
made their forecasts, the difference between "40% more transmissible"
(the orange line below) and "50% more transmissible" (the blue line
below) made a huge difference to the predicted severity of a third wave.
Chart showing hospital cases
And then, to know what to do about rising cases, you need to predict
what effect any change to the rules might have on spread. It's
uncertainty piled on uncertainty.
To know the cost of that action, you need to know what effect another
few weeks of being shut, or trading at a loss, would do to the
businesses that are desperate to open up.
It's a mammoth task and one that will require some old-fashioned
political judgement as well as hi-tech epidemiological models.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
Lockdown easing: Four numbers to look for ahead of the 21 June decision
By Robert Cuffe
Head of statistics
Published1 day ago
Share
Related Topics
Coronavirus pandemic
People sitting outside restaurants in Stevenson Square in Manchester
IMAGE COPYRIGHTPA MEDIA
The UK government faces a difficult choice in the next few days.
Many people are desperate to see the return to normality promised by the
final stage of the roadmap to lifting lockdown.
But ministers always said 21 June was not set in stone - and could be
affected by changes in the pandemic, including the emergence of new
variants.
What will they be weighing up as they make their final decision?
Here are four key numbers to watch out for in the coming days.
1. The number of people in hospital
There are just under 1,000 people with coronavirus in hospitals in the
UK, up about 5% from a low point a week ago.
That's far below the peak of nearly 40,000 people in January. And NHS
Providers say the people who are going in aren't as seriously ill as
they were in early waves. They are younger, or don't require intensive
care as much - and they're coming out sooner.
That means this wave is different, and better, than previous ones but
eventually rising admissions will mount up.
In the two parts of the UK that are furthest into this "third wave", the
North West of England and Scotland, the number of people in hospital
with coronavirus is rising faster than the rest of the UK.
Chart showing rising numbers of people in hospital in Scotland and the
North West of England
How far and how fast this trend develops depends on how fast infections
are rising and how likely you are to get seriously sick with the new
variant.
2. The speed of rising infections
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Parliament on Tuesday that the main
type of coronavirus in the UK - the Delta variant first identified in
India - is "at least 40%" more transmissible than the version that
sparked the winter wave - the Alpha variant first seen in Kent.
And as Delta takes over, infections are on the rise again.
Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested that UK
infections had risen by 60% in a single week.
A chart showing the path of infection numbers through the pandemic and
recent rises
If that growth rate remains steady or picks up, it suggests that cases
will rise pretty quickly if and when society reopens further.
We'll learn more on Friday.
But rising infections on their own aren't a reason to extend lockdown.
The government's key test is whether rising infections "risk a surge in
hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS".
And that also depends on your chances of getting seriously ill if you
catch coronavirus.
When could social distancing end?
3. The chance of becoming seriously ill if infected
That is much harder to predict now than it was in the first or second
waves, when scientists could predict what proportion of cases would need
treatment.
That's because vaccines do reduce your chance of getting really sick if
you do get infected with any variant.
Already we can see that while people who have been double jabbed make up
more than 40% of the population, they make up fewer than 5% of people
who have been admitted to hospital with the Delta variant.
But it does look like it takes two doses before someone gets high levels
of protection from that variant.
So there's a race on: double-jab as many people as possible, before the
virus spreads enough to find the vulnerable or to put pressure on the NHS.
Chart shows daily doses of vaccine with focus now on second dose
4. The number of people who have been fully vaccinated
More than 50% of adults have been given the best protection possible -
two doses of the vaccine. That's still a way off herd immunity, even if
you add in people who have some immunity from having had coronavirus in
the past.
Say each infected person would, on average, pass the virus on to six
other people in a fully open society that hadn't seen the virus before.
Then five out of six people, not just five out of six adults, would need
to be able to fight off the virus - that would be the "herd immunity
threshold".
We're not there yet, and it's possible that the threshold is higher as
Delta could be more infectious than imagined in this example.
But every person vaccinated helps to slow the spread.
How many people have been vaccinated so far?
Predicting the future
To predict what rising infections will mean for the NHS, you need to
know how fast cases will rise and how many cases will get really sick.
We don't know either figure precisely, and probably won't by 14 June.
And a rough estimate doesn't help. The last time UK government modellers
made their forecasts, the difference between "40% more transmissible"
(the orange line below) and "50% more transmissible" (the blue line
below) made a huge difference to the predicted severity of a third wave.
Chart showing hospital cases
And then, to know what to do about rising cases, you need to predict
what effect any change to the rules might have on spread. It's
uncertainty piled on uncertainty.
To know the cost of that action, you need to know what effect another
few weeks of being shut, or trading at a loss, would do to the
businesses that are desperate to open up.
It's a mammoth task and one that will require some old-fashioned
political judgement as well as hi-tech epidemiological models.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
HeartDoc Andrew
Jun 10, 2021, 11:09:47 AM6/10/21
to
the U.K. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, & Delta
lineage mutations combining to form hybrids that render current COVID
vaccines no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2016 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://bit.ly/WonderfullyHungryPresident
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
Jun 11, 2021, 9:45:48 AM6/11/21
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
Jun 11, 2021, 10:08:22 AM6/11/21
to
MichaelE wrote:
> I am wonderfully hungry!
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, not only don't have
COVID-19 but are rapture (Luke 17:37) ready and pray (2 Chronicles
7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in Heaven continues to
give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so
that we'd have much more of His Help to always say/write that we're
"wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including especially caring to
http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm117_ ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewToutsHunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory to
GOD, Who causes us to hunger (Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us
right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby removing the http://HeartMDPhD.com/VAT
from around the heart
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, not only don't have
COVID-19 but are rapture (Luke 17:37) ready and pray (2 Chronicles
7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in Heaven continues to
give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so
that we'd have much more of His Help to always say/write that we're
"wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including especially caring to
http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm117_ ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewToutsHunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory to
GOD, Who causes us to hunger (Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us
right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby removing the http://HeartMDPhD.com/VAT
from around the heart
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
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