‘Epidemic’ doubling every 7 days.....

Billy Horner said:
By my calculations, hospital admissions are currently doubling approx. every 15 days. And remember, the latest numbers exclude admissions in Scotland (where cases are surging at the moment), so the actual doubling rate is probably a bit faster than that.
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Judging by the death figures now more than doubling every week, there's a good chance people aren't making it to hospital, or the hospital numbers are just wrong, and there's not enough tests/ capability, to accurately reflect the current increasing infection rate.

9-15 Sep: 64 deaths
16-22 Sep: 125 deaths (pretty much double)
23-29 Sep: 281 deaths (more than double)

It's the same as before, any time the testing system gets under stress or there's a sharp outbreak, the positive cases can't keep up, as there's not the capacity to cope with the increase.

This is the problem:
1601534983644.png

Where the tests processed meets the testing capability line, we have a massive, massive problem. 2/3 of that capacity might be in the South, yet 2/3 of the infections in the North.

So you have 2/3 trying to get testing capacity from 1/3 of the available capability, where it's needed, it's half. So this is either going to lead to being too slow, or people travelling too far to get a test. If they travel further the chance of infection spread massively increases.
 
Sybil_Fawlty said:
We should also factor in the number of "false positives" - I know of at least two people, that for work reasons have had to take a test before they can go offshore and have had a positive result. Sent home, symptomless and obviously not wanting to lose big work money, they have paid privately for a further test and it has come back negative. I wonder what percentage of these statistics are "false positives"?

For me, this is why we need to focus less on the positive case numbers and instead review the hospitalised, critically ill and deceased numbers.
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How do you know the private tests are not false negatives?
 
Statto1 said:
Judging by the death figures now more than doubling every week, there's a good chance people aren't making it to hospital, or the hospital numbers are just wrong, and there's not enough tests/ capability, to accurately reflect the current increasing infection rate.

9-15 Sep: 64 deaths
16-22 Sep: 125 deaths (pretty much double)
23-29 Sep: 281 deaths (more than double)

It's the same as before, any time the testing system gets under stress or there's a sharp outbreak, the positive cases can't keep up, as there's not the capacity to cope with the increase.

This is the problem:
View attachment 7065

Where the tests processed meets the testing capability line, we have a massive, massive problem. 2/3 of that capacity might be in the South, yet 2/3 of the infections in the North.

So you have 2/3 trying to get testing capacity from 1/3 of the available capability, where it's needed, it's half. So this is either going to lead to being too slow, or people travelling too far to get a test. If they travel further the chance of infection spread massively increases.
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I read yesterday that large care home providers were reporting between 15 and 20% of their homes with coronavirus.

A friend said it had got into a local care home where his mother in law was; it had no infections in the first wave.
 
bear66 said:
I read yesterday that large care home providers were reporting between 15 and 20% of their homes with coronavirus.

A friend said it had got into a local care home where his mother in law was; it had no infections in the first wave.
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It doesn't surprise me, not one little bit. It's just like last time, when all else fails it will be back to relying on the fudged (under reported) death numbers, yet because they're 3 weeks behind the infection you don't know the problem until it's overwhelmed you.

People doubting the cases "doubling every week" is extremely dangerous.
 
I’m sure I read yesterday somewhere that there weren’t any excess deaths in August/September upto the point of the study
 
after all of the doom and gloom this is a welcome report coming out this morning. whether it is accurate or not who knows but the media are jumping all over it
 
Clearly positive test results are not doubling every 7 days, or even there abouts. When I watched the press conference, I don't remember Vallance actually talking about where the numbers were coming from. It may have been an estimate of infections based on the +ve test results and then factored in the number of requested tests that were not conducted due to lack of capacity.

If that were the case he should have been open about that.

In any event hospitalization, ventilation and deaths are all rising if you look at the trend and not just a couple of data points. It clearly does not look good.
 
Low Key what do the triage figures represent? People who present at hospital versus those sent home? If hospitalizations are rising on a 7 day average, how can triage be reducing on a 7 day average. Just trying to understand what this means.
 
its the number of people seeking help with covid related symptoms through A and E, 111 etc.
 
Laughing said:
Clearly positive test results are not doubling every 7 days, or even there abouts. When I watched the press conference, I don't remember Vallance actually talking about where the numbers were coming from. It may have been an estimate of infections based on the +ve test results and then factored in the number of requested tests that were not conducted due to lack of capacity.

If that were the case he should have been open about that.

In any event hospitalization, ventilation and deaths are all rising if you look at did the trend and not just a couple of data points. It clearly does not look good.
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There was one week mid-September where the numbers did double in a week. It looks like that discourse continued after the % dropped.
 
Thanks Low Key. So if I understand this correctly we have a fall in the number of people attending A&E or calling 111, but an increase in the number of people being admitted into hospital.

Thinking this scenario through, it seems to me that what may be happening is less people are seeking help, but of the number seeking help more are being admitted to hospital. Could this be people not seeking help because they do not want to isolate. People seek help when they are much more poorly so are more likely to be admitted to hospital?

I don't know but that looks like a realistic explanation.
 
Laughing said:
Thanks Low Key. So if I understand this correctly we have a fall in the number of people attending A&E or calling 111, but an increase in the number of people being admitted into hospital.

Thinking this scenario through, it seems to me that what may be happening is less people are seeking help, but of the number seeking help more are being admitted to hospital. Could this be people not seeking help because they do not want to isolate. People seek help when they are much more poorly so are more likely to be admitted to hospital?

I don't know but that looks like a realistic explanation.
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You would expect a lag between triage and hospital, and another lag to death, the good news on that data is hospital admissions should start to come down etc as the triage is
 
GazC_MFC said:
You would expect a lag between triage and hospital, and another lag to death, the good news on that data is hospital admissions should start to come down etc as the triage is
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Tongue firmly stuck in cheek, but if:

5% transmission rate via "hospitality" industry.
11% Of cases contracted in hospital.
Surely it is safer to shut the hospitals and keep the pubs open !!!

Both figures from "official sources" this morning (on radio 4)
 
GazC_MFC said:
You would expect a lag between triage and hospital, and another lag to death, the good news on that data is hospital admissions should start to come down etc as the triage is
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Right Gaz, it could be the time period between triage and hospitalization. Let's hope so and we start to see hospitalization begin to drop.

I would have thought, presenting at hospital to hospitalization would be a short period of time, in some instances minutes.

I hope you are right, and it sounds like a reasonable conclusion to me.
 
gravy173 said:
I’m sure I read yesterday somewhere that there weren’t any excess deaths in August/September upto the point of the study
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There probably wasn't as the death numbers were low, falling within the typical variance, and it takes a while for the deaths to kick in. But in March there were no excess deaths either, then look what happened. The time to react was in March, by April it was too late to stop it.

Also, social distancing for covid will also bring down other flu deaths and other deaths caused by activity, work and travel etc. Covid might be up 1k, but it might take other things down 1k, and be hidden etc.
 
Laughing said:
Right Gaz, it could be the time period between triage and hospitalization. Let's hope so and we start to see hospitalization begin to drop.

I would have thought, presenting at hospital to hospitalization would be a short period of time, in some instances minutes.

I hope you are right, and it sounds like a reasonable conclusion to me.
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depends how much of the triage is done by 111 I suppose.
 
Laughing said:
Clearly positive test results are not doubling every 7 days, or even there abouts.
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As a positive number that is being confirmed, they might not be, not now, as we're not testing everyone that needs a test, as infection has overwhelmed capability. This is not a good thing though.

1st Sep we were testing 185k (7 day av), and had 1.5k cases (7 day av) - 0.8% positives
24th Sep we were testing 250k (7 day av), and had 6k cases (7 day av) - 2.4% positives
Then we ran out of testing capability, or capability was not where it needed to be or was slow to respond (this is v-bad).

So, basically we've ran out of test capability, and the positive results are three times higher that what they were three weeks ago.
It's not unreasonable to gauge from that that cases could be doubling every week, we're just not proving they are, as we're not testing enough.

The deaths pretty much prove the cases have doubled each week though, but on a delay. Each week, for the last three weeks the deaths have doubled. IF we're assuming that's 2-3 weeks behind (as it typically takes 14-21 days to die), and we're in a surge of cases now, have exceeded testing capability even further, this all points to us having big problems.
 
Oh we have big problems, that is very likely true, I am just not sure about scientists making assumptions and not presenting those assumptions, if that was indeed what they did.
 
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