03-10-2021, 12:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-10-2021, 12:28 PM by backsidebaggie.)
(03-10-2021, 08:37 AM)baggy1 Wrote: I can understand the 'doom and gloom' around potential lockdowns in the next 12 months and beyond and there may be periods, especially when we get into the winter months, where there are local restrictions but I don't believe we will get to the national lockdown situation that we have had recently. The reason for that is the stats around deaths, the treatment improvements and the vaccine. In the 1st wave we had a high ratio of deaths to hospitalisations, the peak number in hospital last April was around 19k and the worst week for excess deaths was around 12k which occurred on a couple of weeks, whereas in the 2nd wave (I'm only counting 2 waves with the 2nd one starting in September which we are still in) had peak hospitalisation figures of about 34k in January but the worst week for excess deaths was only around 5.5k. These are very rough comparisons but it does show that excess death to hospitalisation in the 1st wave was around 65% whereas in the second it was less than 20% (no real science was used in getting to my conclusion)
This tells me that in a short time we have learned how to treat this better resulting in less lives lost, the next stage is to get the hospitalisations down which is where the vaccine comes in. Early indications are that the vaccine is proving to be effective is creating antibodies and reducing spread which in itself indicates that less people will need to go to hospital. If we can keep the hospital numbers down that will itself have a double win - studies show that 20% of infections came from within hospital therefore less chance of the numbers rising from within, and the NHS can cope with the reduced numbers without having to take other measure to stop spread (we will have cases to deal with, this isn't going away).
The important part of the next few months is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, it really is simple the choice is get vaccinated or face more lockdowns. We also have to be patient in getting to our freedoms, release too early before the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated and spread will occur. My concerns are around unvaccinated people travelling to countries with less vaccination in general and bringing back the virus (and potential new variants) reintroducing it to the community, this is where the government has to act to make sure that we protect the nation from another shitshow.
Great statting again Baggy1. A couple of queries though....
When such a large percentage of hospitalisations are for the over 50s, should it really matter if a lot of youngsters choose not to have the vaccine? (which I think will happen). The vaccination rates in the older generations are very high. I got my stat from here on hospitalisations by age, you're probably aware of this though.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dv...nload.xlsx
And vaccinated people can still get covid and bring back variants anyway, and pass them on to people (especially if they're travelling abroad in the hundreds of thousands, the vaccine isn't 100% effective so there will still be some transmission even amongst the vaccinated). The Greek tourism minister has, I believe, confirmed a vaccine or a negative test will be fine to travel there.