[ad_1]
Smash the hat, avoid a camel’s hump? How do we make sense of all those Covid charts, tables, and curves?
And what do they tell us about how bad things can get?
Professor Mike Tildesley, an expert in mathematical models of infectious diseases, says we can be encouraged that death rates remain low, even as infections increase.
Even in Bolton, the worst affected area, there are only two Covid patients in the hospital, while in the 18 areas in some form of lockdown only 141 people are hospitalized.
Even with 4,000 new cases a day, it is still a long way from where we were in March and April, when an estimated 100,000 fell ill.
Professor Tildesley cautions against over-reading Britain’s infection rate chart or international comparisons.
He says: “Most testing used to be done in hospitals, and now there are many more tests in the community, healthier people with milder symptoms who probably won’t need hospital treatment.
“That explains the sharp increase in infections. We must remember that 3000 cases a day today is not the same as 3000 a day in April, because we are doing much more testing.
“It is quite dangerous to compare one country to another in terms of its case curves because it largely depends on how much testing you are doing.”
The younger healthy people behind the rise in infections could infect elderly and vulnerable relatives, leading to increased hospitalizations and deaths, but it is not inevitable, Professor Tidlesley said.
He added: “There is some evidence of this in Spain. For a long time, deaths were low, but have started to rise in recent weeks. So we need to be cautious and keep checking that.
“But if deaths don’t increase, it will be because healthier people are getting infected and we are better at protecting the vulnerable.”
There is also the possibility that the virus is not so deadly.
Professor Tildesley said: “We know that in the long term viruses can mutate, and when they do, they tend to mutate into milder forms, because it is not beneficial for the virus to kill its host.
(Image: Getty)
“That, and the fact that better treatments are available for hospitalized patients, can help reduce the mortality rate.”
Dr Christina Pagel, professor of clinical operations research at University College London and part of the independent Sage group, is less optimistic.
She said: “It takes you a week to have coronavirus symptoms before it gets worse enough to go to the hospital, and two to three weeks before you die, so there is a delay between infection and death. We won’t see an increase in deaths for a few weeks.
“It is not enough to protect the elderly. The average age of people currently hospitalized with Covid in Birmingham and Manchester is between 45 and 55. It is the parents of the young who get infected. “
Dr. Pagel believes that the most reliable data is the number of new hospital admissions.
She said, “When I look at that, it makes me sad. On September 15, there were 194 admissions, with a seven-day moving average of 154 per day. A week earlier, there were 84 admissions and a weekly average of 77. We are in just over a week doubling the time.
“At current doubling rates, we are two weeks from where we were on March 16, a week before closing, when we had just over 400 admissions per day. And there is no way testing and tracing will be fixed by then.
“Just a week ago things were manageable but now they are spiraling out of control. That is why I am concerned.
“As we see more hospital admissions, we will definitely see more deaths, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it was in March. And it is better not to be so, because a third of our deaths were in residences and that is totally preventable. “
Professor Tildesley also believes that whatever the scenario, the dire predictions of up to 250,000 deaths in the UK suggested by SAGE will not come true.
It points to excess death statistics, the number of people who have died this year compared to the average in previous years.
After an increase in excess deaths at the start of the pandemic, by the summer that number actually dropped below the normal average, suggesting that many of those who sadly died from Covid were people vulnerable to other causes of disease. death.
He said: “We tend to have excess deaths from seasonal flu in the fall and winter, and it could be that sadly many of the people who have died from Covid are the most vulnerable to seasonal flu. This, and the measures now in place to prevent Covid, could mean that we don’t see as many excess deaths from other causes before Christmas. “
It also points to the fact that daily deaths from coronavirus are still far fewer than other causes, such as cancer, traffic accidents, or even seasonal flu.
He says: “Of course this may be due to the measures we have put in place to prevent it.
“But if we keep seeing more people dying from the flu than Covid, then I think this should be part of the discussion: We are having more deaths from the flu, but we don’t isolate ourselves each winter due to the flu. .
“There is still a lot of fear with Covid, where there is not with influenza. Covid has become something that worries us because every day they tell you how many deaths they have had, but they do not tell us how many deaths from car accidents, cancer or flu there have been. “
Dr. Pagel cautions against complacency. “A lot of people are susceptible to Covid because they have never had it before and we don’t know what the long-term impact of Covid is. For example, 20% of flu patients are left with kidney damage after hospitalization, but for Covid that is 45%.
And in this week’s study it was found that 85% of people who left the hospital after Covid need long-term medical care. It is very different from the flu. “
So why did they warn us of hundreds of thousands of winter deaths?
Dr. Pagel says: “That prediction was based on everything being the same at the beginning of March. Now there are many more restrictions and rules that help reduce the spread, and people behave differently. People don’t crowd into small spaces, fewer people use public transportation. We have all changed the way we behave and that has impacted the predictions. “
And he warns that unless tighter restrictions are introduced to halt the rising levels of infection now, another national shutdown is not far off.
She says: “What we have learned is that some places and activities are riskier than others. Most of the transmission has taken place in pubs and restaurants, and people gathered in homes. These are the things we must prevent.
“What we have seen this year is that countries that make decisions early before things get dire have done their best. And recently we have seen, in France and Spain, how waiting too long a second time can be just as disastrous. We have to act quickly to make sure those curves don’t go up again. “
[ad_2]
