Vocal Voices

Are we there yet? Covid of cours.

The guardian got on the bandwagon today but the author posted before todays new numbers show we are in a slightly persistent trend. That is most of what we know.

I took two key portions out of the article. At the beginning and the end. The middle is full of the usual coulda, woulda, shoulda. But is muted and restrained from the hysterics we've been seeing over the last 4 weeks.

It opens with.

This is the first time an epidemic has taken place in a highly vaccinated population without control measures in place, so we are in uncharted territory. There is considerable uncertainty about what the next two months hold.

Well blow me down. That's my question. Do the vaccines work or not. Because that was the deal back in 2020 wasn't it? "We don't have a vaccine to control this so we have to control you, once we have a vaccine, then we can stop controlling you and let the vaccine take its place"

At the end of the article it says.

The epidemic is going to go up and down in the coming weeks. The number of cases will jump around a lot. It’s only by looking backwards that we can see clearly where we have been. So we will never be able to answer “are we there yet?”. We will only be able to say when we were there. And that might have only been temporary.

Of course it had to end with

The consequence of all this is that our individual risk of infection is going to be higher in the coming months than it has been at any point during the pandemic, because the number of infections will likely be higher than at any other point. Vaccinations will prevent many deaths and keep many people out of hospital. But the risks to individuals still exist.

I do, however, totally agree with the very last sentence.

If one thing that is clear from all this, it’s the importance of getting vaccinated.

I fully agree that "Are we there yet" is not going to be answered looking forwards. Only backwards. But we can pose some questions and look at the answers.

Right, are we going to see 100,000 cases per day by mid August? The honest answer is maybe. But the honest answer is also that it does not look likely.
Are we going to see 200,000 cases per day by mid August? The honest answer is "these data don't show that trend and it is unlikely that the trend will change that radically in the next two and a bit weeks".

But the biggest question is "Do the vaccines work?". By work I mean end the pandemic and stop it coming back. Not stop all cases, not stop every single person dying, but will it stop uncontrolled transmission of the virus through the country and bring things under control?

For that one we'll have to wait "just a little longer".

This is the three day trend in new cases.



This is the 7 day trend in new cases



It looks pretty decisive but if you look back, it is possibly a spike. The main difference is that every time we had a fall back before, we had a lockdown. Right now we do not. But with up to 14 days lead time on cases, we are still in "we don't know" territory.

But by Mid August we should have a much clearer picture.

Q. Are we there yet?

A. Nobody knows where "there" is nor what it means.

There is a well known lag of a few weeks between cause and effect, plus time for the analysing of such data, so we will not know where we are "today" until about the 9th of August. It is a rolling programme and one where we are always looking back.

All we can do is look at past trends, and we can do it on a daily basis, to help inform future eventualities.

The good news lies in immunity or partial immunity from those who are fully vaccinated or have recovered. At present we are bang in the middle of "herd immunity" as has been observed in previous bacterial or virus epidemics - about 72%. The outcomes are always slightly variable, but we do know of what can happen in general terms. We also know that herd immunity in itself is not the cure, other social factors / restrictions also have their part to play.

We need to be nimble with our actions to what we see in these data sets and not dogmatic with dates, lockdowns, openings up etc. And we can do with far fewer articles asking "Can", "How" or "Why" what we can or can't do and which then only speculate based on the writer's 'fact free' best guesses.

Workingman wrote:only speculate based on the writer's 'fact free' best guesses.

A big problem. Much more waiting to see.