The 19th of July is on.

[Workingman]

There are those with personal medical issues, but I was not talking about them, as you well know.

And I was not being personal, I was using "you" in the 2nd person plural for the group of people who will not wear a mask because, basically, they don't want to; regardless. They do not give a stuff about the rest of us so long as they can do what they want. Masks were not hurting them nor curtailing them in any way, shape or form, they just don't like - selfish B'stards they certainly are.

[Suff]

Well I was using you in the 2nd person too.

I never refused to wear a mask where it was mandated. I was and remain, sceptical of the benefit of mask wearing. I have read the studies which claim that social distancing and mask wearing would "stop" future waves. It did not. In fact only furlough, work shutdown, economy shutdown and total isolation stopped the waves. Masks will have helped a bit and reduced some transmission, but the studies trumpeted their benefits and the studies were wrong. Because the studies were almost totally "models" and the models didn't really work.

When it becomes legal to not wear a mask I won't. Firstly because I don't believe they are all that effective and secondly because I do understand the changes the vaccination has wrought in the transmission of the virus and the damage the virus can cause.

Tut tutting and finger wagging of those welded to their masks? Don't care. Their problem not mine.

[Workingman]

"Yes, just ignore the non-model real time and observational studies in science that support using masks and carried out in over 100 countries. They do not fit the "masks don't work" mantra of us armchair epidemiologists whose 'gut instinct' studies are much more robust and reliable, so the science ones can be binned."

That's what Bill the gardener down "Spoons says... him and many others.

[TheOstrich]

I think Suff said backalong somewhere (I can't find it!) that it would be an interesting marker if we reached 40,000 cases by next Friday.

Well, 42,302 cases today, so we are possibly on track for at least 100,000 cases daily by early August.

So, 5 days off July 19th., I leave you all to draw your own conclusions as to the effectiveness of (a) the vaccines, (b) the Government and (c) Freedom Day .....

[saundra]

Very expensive vaccine if it doesn't work ossie

I live in hope ?

[cromwell]

The vaccines prevent most deaths and serious infections.
The increase in cases is driven by the under 30s who don't seem to want to be vaccinated.
Hospital stays now are typically a younger person in for a few days rather than an elderly person in for months. The government don't publish how many people are discharged from hospital.
But the apocalyptic doom mongering just keeps coming.
Chin up Saundra, we'll be right!

[Workingman]

The government don't publish how many people are discharged from hospital.

They do publish them, but they are hard to find and correlate with other easy to get headline figures such as those on the government Dashboard or Worldometers.

The link is here.

Be warned: they are big comprehensive files covering just about everything and only month by month, and only for England, so its no wonder journalists avoid them. Taking a quick butchers it looks likely, once deaths are taken out, that roughly 2/3 are discharged within 28 days with the rest classed as recovered from Covid and placed on general wards for full recovery of the after effects.

[Suff]

I think Suff said backalong somewhere (I can't find it!) that it would be an interesting marker if we reached 40,000 cases by next Friday.

I did. It proves that the trend is ~10,000 per week. Which would lead to 100,000 per day in mid august as WM Says.

What then? 1m people in 10 days. 3m people in one month. Are there even another 3m people who could be "easily" infected in October? If not the numbers are going to fall off a cliff as the only new places left for the virus to go are unvaccinated people. I'm talking no vaccines at all, not double vaccinated.

Of course there will be a rise in cases with a re-opening. But it will be nothing more than bringing the inevitable to a close faster.

[Suff]

"Yes, just ignore the non-model real time and observational studies in science that support using masks and carried out in over 100 countries. They do not fit the "masks don't work" mantra of us armchair epidemiologists whose 'gut instinct' studies are much more robust and reliable, so the science ones can be binned."

Actually I linked to scientific studies from research groups and education establishments on a published media site. But never mind the above is in exactly the same mould as is claimed

[Suff]

The government don't publish how many people are discharged from hospital.

They do publish them, but they are hard to find and correlate with other easy to get headline figures such as those on the government Dashboard or Worldometers.

The link is here.

Be warned: they are big comprehensive files covering just about everything and only month by month, and only for England, so its no wonder journalists avoid them. Taking a quick butchers it looks likely, once deaths are taken out, that roughly 2/3 are discharged within 28 days with the rest classed as recovered from Covid and placed on general wards for full recovery of the after effects.

Those are 1 day stats.

I had a look at the Government cumulative and daily stats for beds.

It seems there is a 39% roll over of patients leaving hospital, to new cases, over a 10 day period from July 1st to July 10th. None of the stats really tell us what we'd like to know. But it is fairly certain that these numbers will continue to rise. The question is how relevant that is to unlocking.

Last summer we unlocked without a vaccine and the end result was a second wave which we could not control. This summer we will unlock because people won't tolerate us not unlocking. In October or November we will see the end result of that in a vaccinated society.

Then we can discuss the numbers as we will have the full record set.