The UK response - Part II - read OP

TimeToShine wrote: »

48 hour ban according to RTE, how will this be enforced?

Peregrinus wrote: »

Bzzt! Basic logic fail!

If it is exactly as severe as before, but so much more infectious that, say, three times as many people are infected, then three as many people will die - more, if the extra numbers start to strain health servic capacity.

That's highly relevant.

Leading academics have demanded more data on the new strain of coronavirus after Christmas celebrations were curtailed without consulting the wider scientific community.

Devi Sridhar, a member of the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group, said that raising the alarm over a new strain without wider peer review had stoked “unhelpful” rumours about an increased risk to children.

Linda Bauld, chair of public health at Edinburgh University, said that experts around the country had not been shown any data to support the claim from UK government scientists that the new strain was up to 70 per cent more virulent than existing strains.

Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, admitted that Scotland’s lockdown was “preventative” as there was no data indicating that the new strain had taken hold in Scotland.

Rumours of previous “super-strains” of Covid-19, such as the Spanish strain that reseeded coronavirus in Scotland after the first lockdown, did not stand up to wider scientific scrutiny.

The Spanish strain did not appear to be any more virulent than others, but was simply more prevalent due to the significant number of people who visited Spain and spread it among friends and family upon return.

London was the hardest hit city in the UK during the first wave due to its high population density and international transport hubs.

Matt Hancock, the Westminster health secretary, was visibly shaken by images of packed train stations and shops in London yesterday, indicating that social distancing regulations had substantially broken down in the capital once again.

Professor Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, told Sky News that she had not seen the evidence to support claims that the new virus strain spread more easily among children.

She said: “Not all of the information has been made public . . . there are rumours swirling which are not helpful. We actually need to have the data.

“[Office for National Statistics] surveys have shown a growing number of infections in children, especially aged 12 to 18 and moving down into younger age groups which we had not seen a few months ago.

“Schools are really tricky. I think we need to divide kids under 12 — who we know generally have not transmitted that well between each other as we haven’t seen many outbreaks in nurseries and primary schools — and secondary schools, where children are very much like adults after age 12.

“Schools need to be kept open as much as possible and the way we do that is to keep our community prevalence low so the virus never enters the school in the first place.”

Professor Sridhar urged Boris Johnson, the prime minister, to follow Scotland’s lead and extend school holidays until late January to be on the safe side.

She added: “There are three pieces of information scientists are looking for. First, is it more infectious with a faster doubling time? It seems like it is, which is what is really concerning because it is becoming harder to suppress with our existing tier system.

“The second is are the health outcomes more severe, will we see more hospitalisations, and we just don’t know that yet. Third, could it evade our vaccines and we don’t know that either but it seems the vaccines are still effective.”

Professor Bauld told Good Morning Scotland on BBC Radio Scotland: “The scientific community has not been given the opportunity to scrutinise the data, to look what the consequences are, to really assess to what extent it is behind this big rise in London, the east of England and the southeast of England.

“I certainly hope a lot more information will come forward, that these restrictions will have an impact and that we will know what is ahead of us in the coming months.”

Jeane Freeman, Scotland’s health secretary, told the BBC that the new strain was up to 70 per cent more infectious so ministers decided to “prevent the transmission as far as we can of that new strain in Scotland”.

She said: “We know we already have 17 cases and we think that might be an underestimate and genetic sequencing will help us know more about that. We also want to prevent transmission within Scotland.

“Our case rate is 112 per 100,000 whereas England is at 219 and Wales is 571 but we do know that four weeks ago London’s cases were very low too and now we see that 219 figure for England disguises very high rates in London, the southeast and the east of England.

“That is why we are taking very decisive, preventative action to try and stop us going the same was as London and the south east as the way you deal with this virus is to act early, swiftly and decisively.”

Professor Leitch said that initial indications showed the vaccine would work against the new strain.

However, he said that the mutation appeared to boost the reproduction rate, the rate at which the virus spreads, by 0.4 points. Scotland’s reproduction rate is 0.9 and falling but government scientists fear the new strain could boost this to 1.3 — which means some carriers will infect one and occasionally two others, causing the pandemic to grow. This would return Scotland to the level of infection seen in mid-October which caused deaths to rise above 250 per week from mid-November.

Professor Leitch said: “We were between a rock and a hard place. We tried to open up enough that people would be able to reduce social isolation so they could see people that they haven’t seen for while.

“Then, I’m afraid, we were hit in the face by a new version of this virus which worried us even more, particularly in the southeast of England and London, beginning to accelerate beyond what we think we can manage.

“What we are trying to do in Scotland is a little more preventative than reactive because we can’t see these numbers rise like they have in other places.”

Peregrinus wrote: »

Bzzt! Basic logic fail!

If it is exactly as severe as before, but so much more infectious that, say, three times as many people are infected, then three as many people will die - more, if the extra numbers start to strain health servic capacity.

That's highly relevant.

bob mcbob wrote: »

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/covid-19-in-scotland-show-us-the-data-on-new-virus-strain-demand-scientists-mjt9kr9v6

The Times wrote:

Rumours of previous “super-strains” of Covid-19, such as the Spanish strain that reseeded coronavirus in Scotland after the first lockdown, did not stand up to wider scientific scrutiny.

The Spanish strain did not appear to be any more virulent than others, but was simply more prevalent

El Pais wrote:

Several people who landed at [Valencia] airport ... told EL PAÍS that besides these reinforced controls, their impression was that Londoners do not seem particularly concerned about the new strain of coronavirus that has already caused numerous countries to halt flights from the UK.

“We have seen the [UK] government acting very alarmed and even alarmist since Saturday, but people, at least in London, continue not to wear facemasks on the street,” said Natalia Requena, a healthcare worker who was flying back home for the Christmas holidays. “Many people don’t even wear them on public transportation like the Underground, where it’s mandatory, and all of that is having an effect on incidence, of course".
...
Both Requena and her partner ... work as nurses at King´s College Hospital, in central London, which is currently under confinement orders. “Distances are not observed, either. You see tons of people on the street who are not respecting social distancing. How can all this not affect transmission?”
...
Mónica ... said ... that things are getting very difficult in London, and that the British government has either “not taken measures, or taken them very late. Things got out of control, and now a lot of people want to leave.”

China 650,000
U.S. 614,117
U.K. 500,000
Russia 320,000
Canada 16,929
Israel 10,000

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nitpick: over half a million have had the first injection of a two-injection course of vaccination. Nobody is considered to be actually vaccinated until about two weeks after they've had the second injection.