Ghastly Covid data in the UK today. Just ghastly. 18270 infections, 23 deaths. Here's the overall picture before getting into the details. (1)
Deaths over trend, not massively so but any trend of increasing deaths is awful. Cases over trend again - they're increasing ever faster. Look at the two on log plots (2)
If you just look at he 7 day rolling totals its pretty clear how grim this is now. That was 60 two weeks ago, 74 a week ago, 115 now. (3)
Deaths and cases continue to rise exponenentially. Which means things can get extraordinarily bad very fast indeed. (4)
23 is the highest number of deaths on a Saturday since the 24th of April (5)
115 is the highest 7 day total since the 30th of April (6)
The 7 day average rate of change has been above 3% for 5 days in a row. Its 6.7% now. That hasn't happened since the 14th of January (7)
Cases are rising exponentially. Over 18000 today, for the first time since the 6th of February (8)
Half term slowed the rate cases were rising, and once the impact of that was over we're right back on the same rapid rate that the rise is increasing - i.e. the rate infection is rising is getting faster. 6.4% per day now (9)
So the average doubling time over the last 7 days has been 13 days. Thats entirely unsustainable. We cannot continue that way (10)
Cases are rising WAY faster than at the start of the second wave (11)
As are deaths - the claim that the link between deaths and cases has been broken is demonstrably untrue. It is simply that the relationship is not the same any more (12)
This is proved by back-calculating R from either cases or deaths. The two still track, and both still remain way above 1 (13)
Tomorrow we're pretty certain to go over 100,000 infections in a week for the first time since the 12th of February (14)
The average day to die post infection is 23. The average day to show symptoms is day 5. Assuming 3 days to get a test result, 15 days from a positive test seems a reasonable time for calculating the link between infection and death (15)
Obviously thats not a simple comparison throughout the pandemic - our terrible start at testing and patchy coverage makes that impossible. But at present? Its about a quarter of a percent (16)
So about 50 of those reported infected today are going to die. 250 of those reported infected over the last 7 days. And the number is rising -exponentially- (17)
Britains staggering ineptitude, allowing the Delta variant to run amok, is the only reason for this. Our vaccine coverage is sufficient to mean that the original and Alpha strains would be declining day on day (18)
I cannot stress this enough - it was Johnsons dithering, Hancocks ineptness, Patels disregard, Sunaks greed, and the sheer lack of due diligence of out entire cabinet that led to this new crisis (19)
Each and every who dies of Covid in the UK now, that was merely the weapon our government used to deliver their deaths. This is directly and clearly traceable to them. Never forget. Never forgive (fin).
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PSA (so please RT): After the death of Awaab Ishak, a few words on black mold. Do you have a couple of spots of mold in your shower? Like, maybe top corners on the grouting? That. Well, it might be. It might be a different mold. The really nasty one is Stachbotrytis chartarum.(1)
Well... Aspergillus niger is a badass mofo of a fungus. It's a fighter, it competes in all sorts of environments and it's a generalist. Black spot on an onion? Might be that. Black mark on the grouting? Might definitely be that. (3)
Nobody cares, but here's the solution to the energy price crisis in the UK, at least this Winter. (1)
Start with a windfall tax on producers. The excess profits they're making here, based on our relative political stability, are worth extra because £ is so low. That's just a start (2)
Next thing to do? Scrap standing charges, immediately. You pay for energy, the notion of a 'standing charge' that you pay to have the honour of then spending more, it's just nonsense. Put the cost on use, not having access (3)
Pet hate. Company puts a card through your door "We will be in your area on these days doing (X)". You phone them. They offer you an appointment date a month or months later. So your card was basically a lie, wasn't it @OVOEnergy? Straight up, flay out a lie.
"well the appointments went really fast..." No. If the card comes through my door, posted yesterday to the whole area, all 5 days did not fill up in that time, you did not book out for a whole extra month in that time. I don't believe you @OVOEnergy
You put immediate, early dates on your literature and post it out, bait people to sign up to something and switch to a later date. It's an old and really rubbish trick @OVOEnergy - I expected better from you. Really expected better.
Let me stop you there, David. Peak infection can be calculated from peak fatalities, we know average time it takes Covid to kill. Peak infection was just prior to lockdown, if you cast your mind back you'll recall lockdown was a reaction to public behaviour, not a leader thereof.
In other words we have mathematical proof that lockdown 1 was both needed and way, way too late to save as many lives as we could. Lockdown was soft, without masking, and infection continued to spread in supermarkets etc....
...which meant our rate of recovery from peak 1 was gunbarrel straight for many, many weeks - and too slow. We then opened too fast and sprinted into another catastrophe, and more late lockdowns...
There were things wrong with the first episodes. This wasn't one of them. There are times when a producer concentrates on inclusivity while failing on content (most recent BBC version of Dracula, Doctor Who spinoff Class) but it ain't casting that's the problem, it's content...
...the problem is that whoever you cast, the show can
still be crap. Rings of Power was just OK rather than great, Lenny Henry as a hobbit and a brown guy cast as an Elf weren't the reasons why it didn't meet higher expectations...
...but I do wonder, if you didn't enjoy it and you're rationalising it "well Tolkien didn't make his harfoots brown" then y'all haven't done your reading and you might well rectify that. Google harfoots and nut brown, there's a starting point for you...
So, Polio in London? I'm going to meander on a bit. Sorry. A thread by a microbiologist (but not that kind of microbiologist) detailing what you need to know (1)
Unusually, for me, I'm going to start with a tl;dr point. Should you be worried? Only a little bit, so far. Get your kids vaccinated if you have not. Call your doctor - now-. NOTHING is gained by this risk (2)
Ok. Polio is short for poliomyelitis, from the greek for grey (polio) marrow (myelon). Grey matter myelitis, which sounds (and is) horrible (3)