Thread by @gnomeicide

You may recall I've recently said that it was now, after cases had been rising for a while, that we saw a more rapid rise in Covid deaths. That would be tomorrow, if we took an equivalent day. Today deaths are more than double last Tuesday. Here's the overall picture (1)

23 fatalities today is more than double last Tuesday. Its over trend but as yet within an expected range. Look at cases and deaths on log plots, its fairly clear (2)

The 7 day running total is now 87. Thats more than double what we saw at the low point on the 24th of May, the highest since the 5th of May. (3)

Over the last 7 days deaths are now rising at 5% per day, on average. Thats absolutely terrible. (4)

This is the highest total on a Tuesday since the 20th of April. (5)

Cases way above trend (about a thousand over) too (6)

You'd be brave to say that he slow exponential rise in cases isn't continuing (6)

The rate of rise had slowed to an average of just shy of 4%, its now back up to just under 4.4%. Thats fast. (7)

The rolling average total of cases is above 10,000 now, the highest it has been since the 24h of February, and currently doubling every 12.5 days (calculated the old fashioned rule of 72 way). (8)

Cases are rising from a higher level, at a faster rate than at the start of the second wave (9)

And you had to squint to see deaths had started rising in wave 2, they're already going up now. (10)

Cases had drifted upwards by now during the recovery from the 1st wave, but it wasn't a stark difference yet. The day from which things started taking off faster last time round would be the equivalent of tomorrow. (11)

R as calculated from deaths tracks that worked out from cases, but its noisier because the numbers are smaller. (12)

And if it continues tracking on trend then deaths will continue rising (13)

I want to find something positive to say. There really isn't anything. Vaccines are no doubt suppressing deaths somewhat, but the other hideous long term health impacts of Covid can affect people even with mild symptoms, who are vaccinated (14)

Delta strain is more infectious and the vaccine is less effective - Britain had called one thing right, that was vaccines, but we've entirely squandered that advantage by having no border controls, no working track and trace, and the delta strain has run wild here now (15)

The governments plan is to play for time and hope the school summer holidays and vaccines restore the situation. Thats a huge ask with the delta strain and current vaccines. (16)

We must really be asking now, what are we going to do to turn this around? We've never faced the kind of lockdown thats now required to restore things to where we were (17)

And I have to ask, how many must die before we accept that we need to do more? (fin)