Now Christmas testing/reporting effects have worked through, we can see a decrease in positive tests of > 40% since peak just before Christmas.
ICUs also coming down steadily. We can expect deaths to follow though backdating means it is hard to be sure yet.
Sweden has introduced some more measures over recent months, though nothing like those seen in UK & elsewhere, e.g.:
24 Nov: ban on more than 8 people gathering
7 Dec: schools for 16+ shut
18 Dec: mask guidance (not law) on public transport
24 Dec: some restrictions on bars
Taking account of the lag from infections, the positive test & ICU data suggest infections peaked around 16th December.
Definitely too late for gatherings to be the cause. Probably too late for schools. Clearly too early for the mask guidance or bar restrictions.
Clearly not having an April lockdown has not spared Sweden a winter resurgence in cases & deaths. At the same time, having v. few restrictions has not led to a worse resurgence than in other countries.
And perhaps most importantly, we have yet more evidence that a big increase in cases & hospitalisations can decrease even in the absence of significant additional restrictions.
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In his recent article, @cjsnowdon claims that England's November lockdown was a good example of lockdown effectiveness. Let’s look at that claim using the ONS death-by-date registration data which have now been updated for the relevant period.
Although there is some uncertainty over the average lag between infections and death, we should expect any effect of lockdown to be visible in the deaths series after about three weeks.
If the 5th November lockdown had been effective, we might expect a beneficial effect on the deaths trend from about 26 Nov and an adverse effect from about 23 Dec, reflecting the relaxation on 2 Dec.
Some people have been worried about high numbers of pupils attending schools since 4 Jan.
Children are (generally) not at risk of serious illness but concern was new variant wd cause fast spread in children, which cd then spill over to others.
We now some early data to look at.
First positive tests (7-day ave) for 5-9 & 10-14s. Allowing a 7-day lag to test, infections seem to increase during 1st part of holidays (but beware Christmas testing effects), then decrease from end of Dec. Early days, but so far looks like the decrease has continued since 4 Jan
Next NHS Covid-19 triage for U19s. Lag probably shorter than for tests.
7-day ave trend suggests infections leading to triage decrease before schools shut for Christmas, level off during holidays & then decrease again from about 4 Jan.
This is an interesting read by @cjsnowdon but not sure his examples necessarily support his case.
Take Ireland: Level 5 lockdown restrictions (pubs, cafes hairdressers shut) started on 24 Dec. The vertical rise in cases started 8 days after that on 2 Jan & continued to 8 Jan.
More restrictions were added up until 31st Dec & cases started dropping from the 9th. But you could just as easily claim the 24th Dec restrictions caused the vertical rise on the 2nd as to claim the extra restrictions caused the drop on the 9th.
I don't think Ireland reports by specimen date & also there were reporting lags. So probably pretty hard to be certain about any cause & effect, but it's not exactly a poster case for lockdown restrictions.
I get that the Govt is worried if people hear things are improving, they may change their behaviour & spread the virus more.
Personally, I would argue it is far better to treat the public with respect & to provide balanced, accurate information whether good or bad news.
At the moment the balanced message would be that infections are decreasing in most parts of the country (especially London) whilst at the same time many of our hospitals remain under immense pressure.
Data over the past week has utterly demolished the case made last week for the latest national lockdown, i.e. that infections (and subsequently hospitalisations) would not decrease without another full lockdown.
Current indicators show infections were decreasing nationally before lockdown 3, the most dramatic falls being in London, SE & E, but most regions decreasing.
(& let’s be clear: the more promising trends were already becoming evident even when lockdown was announced last week).
You can credibly make a case for Level 4 restrictions on the grounds they were having some effect. FWIW, I don't think there is anything in the data to suggest that, but let's put that to one side for now.
The Zoe estimates have been a pretty reliable early indicator but the decrease is also evident in other indicators: NHS triage, positivity % & positive tests have also all decreased nationally & especially in London, East & South East.
NHS triage data goes to 11 Jan so should pick up at least the start of any effect of schools re-opening to key workers from 4th Jan (+ to nearly all primary pupils for 1 day the 4th). So it is good to see U19 7-day ave falling.